


Scars

by geri_chan



Series: Always [12]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 13:21:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 302,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3174782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geri_chan/pseuds/geri_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snape and Lupin are enjoying their summer vacation and looking forward to a new school year, while the werewolf Ash now has a respectable job at the Ministry and a new love interest. However, their newfound peace is threatened when the past comes back to haunt them...</p><p>Originally archived on Ink Stained Fingers 04/27/06.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Song lyrics are from "Scars" by Papa Roach and "Animal I Have Become" by Three Days Grace.
> 
> Warnings: There are a few brief scenes of graphic violence, although mostly it's implied rather than shown. There is also a scene of slightly dubious consent in Chapter 7.

[Our scars remind us that the past is real  
\--"Scars" by Papa Roach]

Theodore was still working in Ireland on his apprenticeship; Dylan was visiting Hermione and her family in the Muggle world; and Selima had gone off with Molly Weasley to look at potential reception sites for the upcoming wedding of Bill and Fleur. Vorcher was in the kitchen preparing dinner, and Cabal was out frolicking in the garden, so for all practical purposes, Lupin and Severus had the house to themselves and they took full advantage of it, making love all afternoon. 

Severus had finally collapsed onto the bed and pleaded exhaustion, and apparently he hadn't been joking this time, because he had almost immediately drifted off to sleep. Lupin, however, remained awake to watch his sleeping lover, smiling at the rare sight of the Potions Master looking peaceful and relaxed, the frown lines that usually creased his face smoothed out in slumber. 

Lupin felt as if he would be content to just lie here forever, drinking in the sight of his beloved--his raven-black hair, sleek and shiny; his pale skin; his lanky body. He had long ago memorized every plane and curve of his lover's body, by sight and by touch, but he never tired of watching Severus. In fact, he secretly enjoyed these moments, when he could lie awake and watch his lover sleep, partly because of the trust it implied, that the paranoid former Death Eater was willing to sleep by Lupin's side, leaving himself unconscious and vulnerable. And Lupin also savored these moments because he could stare at Severus without him becoming self-conscious and making disparaging remarks about his sallow skin and greasy hair and beaky nose.

Lupin thought his lover was handsome, even beautiful, but it usually made Severus a little uncomfortable when he said so out loud, because the Potions Master had been told so many times as a child that he was ugly, that he had come to believe it. Lupin sighed guiltily, because his friends, the Marauders, had been the main offenders in that, although they were by no means the only students in the school who had insulted and picked on Severus. 

But what Lupin still regretted most was the way that he had failed to stand up to James and the others and defend Severus, even after they'd become friends and then lovers. Oh, sure, he'd tried halfheartedly to tell them that Severus wasn't really so bad and that they shouldn't pick on him so much, but when they'd failed to heed his words, he had dropped the subject rather than risk alienating his friends.

He stared at his sleeping lover intently, suddenly seized by an irrational fear that Severus might vanish if he looked away, that he might wake up to find that their happiness together was all a dream and that Severus still hated him. He reached out and laid his hand on Severus's chest, and was reassured by the warmth of his skin, and the rhythm of his heart beating beneath Lupin's hand.

Beneath his hand also lay the scar left by the Sectumsempra spell that the Revenant had cast. Lupin smiled tenderly and gently ran his fingers along the scar, which ran from just below Severus's collarbone to just above his navel. It was horrifying to think of Severus nearly being split open and gutted like a fish, but the scar itself did not horrify Lupin. To him it was a blessing, because it meant that the wound was healed and Severus was still alive. It was a reminder of how fragile and precious life was, a reminder to cherish every moment of their time together...

"I love you, Severus," Lupin whispered.

*** 

Snape woke to the sensation of Lupin's hand gently running down his chest. At first he thought it was merely a simple caress, until he realized that Lupin's fingers were tracing the long scar that had been left by the Sectumsempra spell, and he tensed slightly. Snape was still a little self-conscious about the scar although he knew that he was being irrational. If Lupin didn't mind his beaky nose and greasy hair, and had even been willing to kiss and touch the Dark Mark that had been branded on him, it was not likely that his lover would be repulsed by a scar.

"Does it hurt, Severus?" Lupin asked in a concerned voice. "I thought the wound had healed weeks ago."

"No," Snape replied sheepishly. "It doesn't hurt, and it is healed." He laughed in a self-deprecating manner to cover his embarrassment. "And fortunately, I don't have any good looks to be ruined by this scar. Lucius, for one, would have been devastated about having his perfect lily-white skin marred." Although Lucius Malfoy no longer had to worry about such things, with his body moldering in the Malfoy family crypt, which did not sadden Snape in the slightest.

Lupin laughed. "Are you fishing for compliments, Sev? You know that you are always beautiful to me, my love, scars or no scars." In a more serious voice he said, "I would rather that you had not been hurt, of course, but to me this scar is a symbol of your bravery and nobility, and so I shall cherish it." He stroked Snape's scar again, then pressed his lips to it reverently.

"Only a Gryffindor could be so melodramatic," Snape mumbled, feeling pleased and yet embarrassed at the same time, because surely he was not worthy of such reverence. Lupin looked up and smiled at him tenderly, his eyes filled an expression of profound love--all for himself, Snape realized with a sense of awe. He had spent so much of his life watching and hungering after Lupin from a distance that sometimes he found it hard to believe that Lupin was really his, that he no longer had to share Lupin with the Marauders. Snape savored the fact that Lupin's smile was just for him, and not Potter or Black or Pettigrew.

Well, technically Lupin and Black were still friends, but Black was no longer the enemy and moreover, had his own family which now took precedence in his life. Branwen and Potter junior were the center of Black's life now, not Lupin--as Snape was the center of Lupin's life now, so he no longer begrudged his lover's friendship with Black.

"I only did it because I didn't want to be indebted to the bloody Potter family for the rest of my life," Snape said gruffly, but Lupin kept smiling at him, the tenderness now tinged with a hint of amusement.

"And because you would not let one of your students--even an annoying Gryffindor--be killed if you could prevent it, even at the risk of your own life," Lupin said. "And dare I suggest that perhaps you might have saved Harry for my sake, because he is dear to me, even if he is not so dear to you?"

"You may suggest all you like, Lupin, but that doesn't make it true," Snape said, feigning a scowl. "With your overactive imagination, perhaps you should be the one writing maudlin novels instead of Prospero Zabini."

"Perhaps I should," Lupin laughed good-naturedly. "I could write stories about star-crossed Gryffindor and Slytherin lovers who cannot deny their feelings for each other even though their Houses try to tear them apart."

Snape began to regret the sarcastic suggestion that he'd made; Lupin was probably only teasing him, but one could never predict what that idiot Gryffindor might do next. He opened his mouth to object to Lupin's potential career as a novelist, but his lover silenced him with a kiss.

"If I'm going to write a romance novel, then I ought do some research, don't you think?" Lupin purred, with a feral, wolfish hunger suddenly glinting in his blue eyes. He sat up and swung one leg over Snape's hips so that he was straddling the startled Potions Master.

"It's flattering that you have such high expectations of my stamina, Lupin," Snape said in a sardonic drawl. "But while you might possess the strength of a werewolf, I am bound by the limits of a human body."

"I have a theory, Severus," Lupin said in a conversational tone of voice. "I believe that a werewolf transmits a little of its stamina and insatiable desire to its mate."

"Like a sexually transmitted disease?" Snape scoffed, although he suspected that Lupin was probably right.

"I wouldn't have put it so inelegantly, but yes, I suppose so," Lupin said, grinning. "A highly communicable disease. Although it's just a theory, of course. There aren't exactly any papers or books written on the subject. Perhaps I should compare notes with Aric and Takeshi, and Lukas and Narcissa?" Snape glared at him, and Lupin laughed. "Well, perhaps not." He lowered his voice to a husky whisper and murmured, "So shall we conduct some hands-on research and investigate the matter ourselves, Professor Snape?"

"Mmm...yes," Snape sighed as Lupin very slowly and deliberately began grinding his hips against Snape's. He reached up and put his arms around Lupin, pulling him down for a kiss. "For the sake of research..."

*** 

Selima had invited Lukas, Narcissa, and Draco over for dinner that evening, and they all sat around the table making small talk about how they'd spent the day. Selima, of course, had spent the day with Molly; Lukas had met with Tsubasa to go over plans for Physical Defense lessons for the upcoming school year; Narcissa had taken Celine (one of the children from the werewolf pack) shopping for school supplies; and Draco had been working at his job with Lupin's inventor friend Cassidy Sinclair, and seemed excited about the toys and devices they were creating.

"I'm working on a mobile of Quidditch players chasing a Snitch and a Bludger," Draco said. "Well, chasing a Snitch and being chased by a Bludger, actually. It was just a personal project that I was doing for baby Cedric, but Mr. Sinclair says that he thinks we ought to market it."

"Quidditch is always a very popular theme," Lupin agreed.

"I still have to work out a few kinks in the system, though," Draco said. "The Bludger and the Snitch have a tendency to get tangled up with each other."

"And what about you, Severus?" Narcissa asked politely. "How did you and Remus spend your day?"

"Oh, we spent the day going over some research that I've been putting together," Lupin replied innocently as Snape choked on his food. He paused to pat his lover on the back, then continued, "I'm thinking of writing a paper on werewolves."

"You're certainly qualified, Professor," Selima said dryly. 

Lukas laughed, then looked thoughtful for a moment. "Seriously, Remus, you really ought to consider writing a paper, maybe even a book. Most of the texts that currently exist on lycanthropy are are full of inaccuracies or outright lies."

"Like 'Wanderings with Werewolves' by Gilderoy Lockhart?" Draco snickered.

"That idiot," Snape muttered, still looking annoyed by the memory of the former DADA teacher. "You have no idea how much self-control it took not to strike him down with an Unforgivable Curse during that dueling demonstration we put on."

Lukas chuckled, then continued, "So perhaps you should write a more accurate textbook, Remus. Between the three of us--" He gestured towards himself, Lupin, and Snape. "--and your friends in Japan, you've amassed quite a bit of information on werewolves." 

He sighed, looking wistful. "My father once possessed what was probably the largest collection in the world on lycanthropy: textbooks, bestiaries on Dark Creatures, books on werewolf folklore and legends, potion recipes, even never-published notes on illegally-conducted experiments. But unfortunately, Amos and his parents apparently destroyed it all after my father died. Sirius asked the Aurors to question Amos about it for me, and Amos said that they burned all my father's books and papers, then razed his house to the ground to get rid of any evidence of my lycanthropy." Lukas smiled bitterly. "I suppose that I should be grateful that they only sent me into exile instead of killing me."

"Amos was afraid to get blood on his hands, at least back then," Snape said. But he knew from experience how easily committing one misdeed could lead to another and then another and so on, with each incident increasing in severity, until one was in so far over one's head that there was no turning back. That was how Voldemort had drawn many of his followers into the Death Eaters, after all--things had started off with a few secret meetings and illicit lessons in the Dark Arts, and then they'd begun testing some of the hexes they had learned on Muggles (because, after all, who cared what happened to a Muggle?), and then they started using more severe hexes on those wizards that Voldemort deemed his enemies, until the Death Eaters found themselves committing murder in the Dark Lord's name. 

Some, like the Lestranges, had willingly embraced their descent into darkness, while others, like Regulus Black, had realized their mistake and tried to escape, only to find that no one was allowed to leave the Dark Lord's service, save in death. For Amos Diggory, it had begun with what might have seemed to him a small sin at first; he had committed no crime of his own, but helped to conceal his parents' crime, the murder of his brother, out of misguided filial love and loyalty. But to keep that secret, he'd had to send his young nephew into virtual imprisonment and exile, and live a lie for years, hiding the truth even from his sister and his wife. And in the end, he had become so obsessed that he had been willing to commit murder (or at least attempt to) in order to protect that secret and the family honor.

Lukas nodded somberly, and Draco broke the awkward silence that followed by saying, "Well, the books might be gone, but you must remember some of the information that was in them, since you've told us so much about your father's research and the various cures that he tried. And you've learned a lot from your experience as leader of the werewolf pack. Maybe you could collaborate with Professor Lupin on his book."

"Well, I haven't decided yet if I actually am going to write a book," Lupin pointed out with a smile.

"I was only twelve years old when my father died," Lukas said, a look of sorrow and nostalgia falling over his face like a shadow. "Old enough for him to explain, in a general way, about my lycanthropy and what he was doing to try to cure it, but he didn't always go into specific detail, especially about the illegal experiments. I only remember little bits and pieces of things."

"But still, you knew things that I didn't," Lupin said thoughtfully. "You knew that inherited lycanthropy usually manifests at around age four, because an infant's body can't handle the strain of the monthly transformations."

"Well, it's only a scholarly theory that my father read about, but it seems logical," Lukas said with a shrug.

"And you knew that you could transform when the moon wasn't full, if the wolf felt threatened enough," Lupin continued. "I'd heard rumors about it, but I wasn't sure if they were really true until I saw and experienced it firsthand when we fought the Death Eaters."

"It's very rare, but I saw it happen to my pack members a couple of times," Lukas replied. "We led rather dangerous lives. But none of us ever became permanently stuck in our wolf forms, as you say happened to some of the Japanese werewolves."

"Maybe we really should pool our knowledge and write a book," Lupin laughed.

"Just how much information do you intend to put in this hypothetical book?" Lukas said, beginning to look a little worried. "On one hand, I would like to see something that would counteract all the lies out there, but on the other hand, too much knowledge could be a bad thing. Won't it make people fear us more if they believe that we can transform at any time?"

"They already know," Lupin reminded him. "Rita Skeeter reported how the werewolves fought in the final battle, and of course there was your dramatic transformation and rescue of that little girl from the runaway Graphorn in Diagon Alley."

Lukas scowled at the memory of the latter incident, and Narcissa teased, "It's your own fault for playing hero, my love."

An irritated sigh hissed through Lukas's lips. "I suppose so. Even Takeshi told me that I was acting like a stupid noble Gryffindor hero. Well, he didn't actually say 'stupid,' but it seemed to be implied."

Snape smirked. "I knew there was a reason why I liked Mr. Kimura."

Lupin laughed, then said, "But to answer your question, Lukas, people fear the unknown. I think that knowing more about us would cause them to fear us less, not more. The way that our students no longer fear us, because they know us as people instead of just werewolves. And it would help newly-made werewolves to better understand what has happened to them and what they will become. With the Wolfsbane Potion in wide use these days, hopefully there won't be many more victims of werewolf bites, but from time to time, a few people will be born with inherited lycanthropy as we were."

"I guess you're right," Lukas agreed reluctantly. "I'll try to recall what I can of my father's research and write it down for you. But I am a little busy at the moment, with school starting soon and a baby on the way." He smiled lovingly at his wife and rested his hand on her stomach, which formed a rounded curve beneath her robes.

"The baby won't be born for a few months more," Narcissa laughed, laying her hand over her husband's. "There's still time for you to help Remus with his book."

"Things will only get busier after the baby is born," Selima predicted. "If you intend to help Remus, you might as well do it now before the baby is waking you up every few hours demanding to be fed or changed. Which means that you should also probably enjoy sleeping through the night while you still can."

"Draco was a very fussy baby," Narcissa said, smiling indulgently at her son.

"Aw, Mum!" Draco protested, his face turning red.

His mother kissed him on the cheek and added, "But he was worth every moment of those sleepless nights."

"Mum!" Draco protested again, but he smiled a little.

Lupin chuckled. "Well, I'm sure that Cedric Drake will cause you some sleepless nights, but at least you'll have several baby-sitters ready at hand." Lukas's pack had promised to help with the baby when it was born, and were all eagerly awaiting the birth of their "little brother". "Work on those notes when you have time, Lukas; there's no rush."

"Maybe your book will become a bestseller, and you'll become famous, like Lockhart," Draco said with a grin.

"He's already famous," Selima pointed out. "Or perhaps 'infamous' would be a more accurate term."

Snape groaned, "As if people weren't gossiping enough about us as it is! If he really does write a bestseller, that Skeeter woman will start hounding us again!"

"You're all getting a little ahead of yourselves," Lupin said, looking amused. "I haven't even written the book yet. And even if I do write it, there's no guarantee that I'll be able to find a publisher, let alone become a best-selling author."

"With my luck, you will be," Snape said gloomily.

"You say that like it's a bad thing, Professor," Draco said, still grinning. "I think it would be pretty cool to know a famous author."

"Then I'll be sure to send you an autographed copy, Draco," Lupin joked, and Snape groaned again.

Narcissa smiled and tactfully changed the subject; a good pureblood wife always knew how to keep a conversation running smoothly. "Have you heard from Theodore recently, Severus? How is his apprenticeship coming along?"

"He just wrote to us a few days ago, and he seems to be doing quite well," Snape replied, looking relieved at the change in conversation topics, and pleased to have a chance to brag about his son. "He finds his work interesting, and has impressed Master Tremayne enough that the old curmudgeon intends to keep him on even after the dig is over." The reclusive and antisocial Runes Master had not taken an apprentice in years, and had only reluctantly agreed to accept Theodore as an assistant on a provisional basis, for the duration of the archaeological dig. 

"It seems that the dig will last longer than originally expected, though. They're having trouble translating the runes, as the wizard who originally built the tower seems to have invented his own runic system or used some sort of code. Theodore says that the team has found several interesting magical artifacts, which they are handling with utmost caution, as this wizard appears to have been dabbling in Dark Magic."

"How intriguing," Narcissa murmured.

"What sorts of artifacts?" Draco asked eagerly.

"They aren't entirely sure what some of them do," Snape replied. "Which is why they are handling them with such caution. I expect that the Ministry will end up confiscating most of them for safekeeping." 

Draco sighed regretfully and Lupin said with a smile, "The artifacts that are deemed safe will eventually be put on display at the Museum of Wizarding History, so you might still have a chance to look at them, Draco. Actually, I was thinking that it might be interesting to discuss the dig and the artifacts in DADA class or History of Magic, depending on just how Dark a sorcerer this wizard really was."

"Hmm, not a bad idea," Snape said. "You ought to discuss it with Mr. Zabini, since he'll be assisting with the History classes."

"I still can't believe that Blaise is going to be a teacher!" Draco said, looking bemused. "I guess it suits him; he always was the studious sort. But I always pictured Granger more as the teacher type, with the way she's always lecturing everybody."

"She would be a good teacher," Lupin agreed. "But I think that she would be good at anything she sets her mind to, including potion-brewing. She'll start working for the Apothecary when she and Dylan get back."

"Out of all the women in the wizarding world, he had to set his heart on a bossy, know-it-all, Muggle-born Gryffindor wench," Snape grumbled

"Look on the bright side, Severus," Lupin said cheerfully. "They're bound to give us very intelligent grandchildren someday. Maybe even a future Potions Master or Mistress."

"With my luck, they'll all be Gryffindors," Snape predicted pessimistically, and everyone laughed.

*** 

Meanwhile, Harry was getting settled into his new job as an Auror. He'd been a little nervous about it, but to his pleasure, discovered that he'd been assigned to work with Kingsley Shacklebolt and Tonks, his favorite Aurors, for his training period.

"Welcome aboard, Harry!" Shacklebolt said heartily.

"Thanks, Mr. Shacklebolt," Harry replied.

"No need to be so formal, Harry," Shacklebolt said, patting him on the shoulder. "We're colleagues now, so call me 'Kingsley'."

It was nice to be treated as an equal by an adult that he respected, after years of being treated like a kid who needed to be protected, but also a little intimidating, as he felt the need to prove himself worthy of his new colleague's respect.

"Thank you, Kingsley," Harry said. "I'm looking forward to working with you. I know that I have a lot to learn."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Kingsley said with a grin. "You single-handedly defeated You-Know-Who, and Rabastan Lestrange is sitting in a cell in Azkaban right now, thanks to you."

"Um, actually that's mostly because of Professor Snape," Harry mumbled, flushing; he knew that he had really screwed up in the battle with the Revenant. Despite Snape's warnings, he had let his guard down, lulled by the fact that his father's spirit had been possessing Lestrange's body, and he would have been killed if Snape hadn't saved him. He was glad that James's spirit had finally been laid to rest and that Lestrange was in prison, but he didn't feel that he could take full credit for those things.

Tonks seemed to sense his discomfort, and said lightly, "Well, I know one thing for sure, Harry--things are never dull with you around! In fact, I'm hoping that you'll liven things up around here a little." She grinned and winked at him, and Harry smiled back at her.

"You know that old saying, Tonks--'be careful what you wish for,'" Kingsley warned, but with affection and good humor rather than censure. "But she's right; things have been pretty quiet recently, now that all the Death Eaters have finally been rounded up. Hopefully that will prevent any more public panics like the ones caused by Williamson and that R.A. group."

Both a corrupt Auror, Williamson, and a group of students whose relatives had been murdered by the Death Eaters, had been bent on taking revenge--not just against the actual Death Eaters, but on Professor Snape and the Slytherins, because they had assumed that all Slytherins must be Death Eaters, or at least Death Eater sympathizers. They had engineered a series of false threats and attacks designed to play on the public's fears and whip up anti-Slytherin (and anti-werewolf) sentiments, and had succeeded all too well until their plot had finally been exposed. Harry hadn't believed that Professor Snape was still a Death Eater, of course, but he had worried for awhile that a real Death Eater might have been involved in the attacks.

"Are you really sure that all the Death Eaters have been captured or killed?" Harry asked nervously. "Not even the other Death Eaters knew about Wormtail at first, after all."

"It's true that Voldemort kept a few of the Death Eaters' identities concealed even from his followers during the first war," Tonks replied, looking serious now. "But Severus believes that the Dark Lord called in all of his Death Eaters for the final battle--it was the final confrontation between you and Voldemort, and there was no reason for him to hold back in what he believed would be a make-or-break battle. And we've questioned all the surviving Death Eaters under Truth Potion, and none of them know of any comrades still at large. So yes, I think that we've found them all."

"Which isn't to say that there aren't still people out there who sympathize with You-Know-Who's beliefs," Kingsley added. "But right now, everyone is eager to disavow themselves from any connection with the Death Eaters, including--no, especially--the Death Eaters' families." He smiled wryly. "Most of them made a great show of expressing shock and horror at the actions of their Death Eater relatives, and more than a few of those names were burned off the family tapestries. They're all either keeping a low profile or slavishly declaring their loyalty to Arthur Weasley's administration. We are keeping a close eye on certain people, but no one seems to be inclined to cause any trouble right now." He grinned at the violet-haired witch. "Which is why Tonks has been getting bored lately."

"Well, after the past seven years, I wouldn't mind too much if things were a little boring for a change," Harry laughed.

Things continued to remain quiet for the first several weeks of Harry's apprenticeship. They inspected Borgin and Burkes for contraband Dark Magic items, but found nothing illegal--not that the shop didn't possess such things, Kingsley informed Harry, but Mr. Borgin was clever enough to have hidden them or moved them out of the shop before the inspection.

"He's a sneaky bastard," Kingsley said, in a tone of grudging respect.

Other shopkeepers in Knockturn Alley weren't as clever or sneaky as Mr. Borgin, and the Aurors were able to confiscate a few illegal items and potions. None of the items were dangerous enough to warrant a prison sentence, but stiff fines were levied against the offending shops.

Aside from checking suspicious stores for Dark Magic contraband, the Aurors also investigated complaints or reports filed about individuals suspected of using Dark Magic or possessing Dark items or spellbooks. Most of the reports turned out to be false, the result of people being overly paranoid and jittery because of the recent scare, and in one case, a false report had been deliberately filed by someone who held a grudge against the supposed Dark Wizard and wanted to get him into trouble. 

The person who had filed the report received a severe tongue-lashing from Tonks and Kingsley, as well as a heavy fine. Harry was impressed that Tonks, who had always seemed so cheerful and amiable, could give a lecture almost as blistering as Snape's--almost, but not quite, but then again, no one except Professor Blackmore could match Snape in delivering a scathing lecture.

The most exciting thing that happened was the time that they were called upon to break up a duel, except that it was really more of a heated argument that got a little out of hand and ended up with the quarreling pair flinging hexes at each other. Harry, Tonks, and Kingsley broke up the fight, dispelled the curses, and let the pair cool off overnight in separate jail cells before levying fines on them in the morning.

Despite what he had said about not minding if things were boring, Harry was just a little disappointed; he had thought that being an Auror would be more exciting than this. Of course he was grateful that he didn't have to fight any more Death Eaters, and he knew that he should appreciate the peace and quiet, but secretly he could sympathize with Tonks wanting to liven things up.

One benefit of Harry's new job, however, was that he was able to spend a lot more time with his godfather. Since Sirius worked at the Ministry as the Head of Werewolf Support Services, they often had lunch together in the Ministry cafeteria. Tonks and Kingsley would usually join them, along with Sirius's new assistants--Harry's former enemies, Crabbe and Goyle. Dennis Creevey and Brad Doherty were also working for Sirius part-time as summer interns, which meant that they were paid only a token pittance of a salary, but would be able to put in their resumes that they had worked at the Ministry, which would sound impressive to prospective employers.

On this particular day, Ash Randolf joined them. He usually sat with them when he ate at the cafeteria, although Harry wasn't sure if that was because he enjoyed their company or because most of the other Ministry employees avoided him, either out of fear or bigotry. Ash (as he'd told Harry to call him; he'd laughed out loud the first time that Harry had addressed him as "Mr. Randolf") got along pretty well with Tonks, Kingsley, and Sirius, but Sirius's assistants seemed to make him a little uncomfortable. 

It wasn't that they were unfriendly, but rather the reverse: because they all looked up to Lupin so much, they regarded all werewolves with a sense of awe and hero worship, and wanted to ask Ash many questions about what it was like to be a werewolf. Ash, however, was a very private person--or at least, Harry assumed that he was, since he revealed almost nothing about his personal life during their lunch conversations. But that wasn't really surprising; Master Diggory and Lupin had both said that most werewolves were used to keeping their lycanthropy a secret, since in the past they would have been ostracized and sometimes even imprisoned or killed if people discovered their secret.

Harry knew what it was like to be the center of unwanted attention, and tried to change the subject when Ash looked like he was tired of being pestered by the young wizards' well-intentioned questions.

"I thought you wanted to start a Thestral carriage business, Crabbe," Harry said, and the werewolf shot him a grateful look.

"Yeah, I do," Crabbe said eagerly, his attention diverted as Harry had intended. "But me and Luna were gonna run it together, and she still has another year at Hogwarts before she graduates. And we'll need some capital to start off with, so I thought it would be a good idea to get a job and save up some money first."

"Very practical of you," Sirius said approvingly. "Tell you what, Crabbe--draw up a business plan and show me that you can make this work, and I'll make an investment in your business."

"Really?" Crabbe asked, his eyes lighting up. "Gee, thanks, Sirius!"

"Way to go, Crabbe!" Goyle exclaimed, slapping his friend on the back. "Your first investor!"

Brad, whose father was an accountant, volunteered, "I'll help you figure out your expenses, and how much you'd have to charge to make a profit."

The three Slytherin boys chattered excitedly, making plans for Crabbe's business, and Harry whispered to his godfather, "Is that really okay? What if the business fails?"

Sirius shrugged, unconcerned. "Any investment has an element of risk, Harry. Crabbe and Luna seem determined and willing to work hard, so I'm willing to take a chance on them." He grinned and added, "Besides, it will annoy my mother's portrait to see me squandering the Black fortune."

The talk turned towards work after that, and Ash mentioned that his department (Misuse of Muggle Artifacts) had fined a semi-famous Quidditch player for possessing prohibited Muggle devices, which reminded Harry of all the fines that the Aurors had handed out to people caught using Dark Magic or possessing Dark items.

"I never realized before that the Ministry collected so many fines," he said.

Crabbe and Goyle laughed knowingly, and Harry frowned. The two Slytherins had a reputation for being not-so-bright, and it irked him a little that they could make him feel ignorant, although there was no malice in their laughter.

Kingsley smiled and asked, "Where else do you think the Ministry gets the money that it runs on, Harry?"

"I never really thought about it before," Harry admitted. "I guess I assumed that they collected taxes or something, the way the Muggle government does."

"Yes the Ministry does collect taxes, but it prefers to call them 'licensing fees,'" Tonks said, rolling her eyes. "Any wizard or witch who runs a business needs to obtain a license from the Ministry, for which they must pay a fee. And of course people who want a favor from the Ministry usually pay a large 'donation'..."

"You mean a bribe," Harry said.

"Yes, but 'donation' is the polite term for it," Tonks replied. "Arthur has been trying to discourage that sort of thing, but you can't expect to completely root out corruption overnight."

"Politics and corruption go hand-in-hand," Ash said cynically. "You can't really separate them. It's the same in the Muggle world, too."

"I don't believe that," Dennis protested. "After all, Mr. Weasley got elected Minister of Magic, and he passed the equal rights bill."

"Just because a piece of paper says that we're equal, it doesn't mean that people think of us as equals," Ash said, motioning towards the other people dining in the cafeteria, most of whom were studiously avoiding looking at him, or casting disapproving sidelong glances his way. He glared at one of the latter, a young Ministry clerk, who turned pale and quickly looked away.

Dennis looked like he wanted to argue further, but this time Sirius changed the subject. "So, Harry, Crabbe, Goyle--what are your yearmates up to? Have they all found apprenticeships?"

"Well, let's see..." Harry said. "Ron's apprenticing at the flower shop with Mr. Greengrass, of course, and Hermione is working for the Apothecary and for that lawyer, Ms. De Lacy. Although I don't know how she intends to work two jobs without a Time-Turner. Neville's been apprenticed to a friend of Professor Sprout's who specializes in growing herbs for healing potions and salves. Dean got a job in Muggle Relations, and Seamus is working at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Apparently the shop's done so well that Fred and George were able to expand and hire more people."

"Good for them!" Sirius said. 

"I'm not sure what Parvati and Lavender are doing, though," Harry added. 

"We ran into Millicent last weekend," Goyle said. "She's busy preparing for her wedding to Miles Bletchley, by the way. Anyway, she said that Parvati's working at Gladrags Wizardwear in Hogsmeade--and she's designing Millicent's wedding dress. And Lavender's going to Japan next month to apprentice with Professor Chizuru for a few months. Her apprenticeship was supposed to be over the summer, but they had to postpone it because of the Professor's wedding." Goyle sighed, a dreamy and wistful expression spreading across his face at the thought of the beautiful crane princess.

Crabbe rolled his eyes. "Millicent went on and on about how she wished she could have gone to the wedding and how romantic it must have been. I'm sure Pansy would've too, except that she's not here. She got an apprenticeship with Ali Bashir, Professor Snape's cousin, and so did that Muggle-born boyfriend of hers, Finch-Fletchley."

"Justin did?" Harry asked, startled. "I hadn't heard that. I guess it must be serious between them."

Crabbe smirked. "Pansy's family is furious, but Pansy doesn't care; she's having a great time at her new job. Mr. Bashir's a merchant, so they get to travel all over the world looking for goods to bring to England. Where are they now, Goyle?"

"Uh...India, I think. Or was it Egypt? I'm not really sure, but she's supposed to be back in time for Millicent's wedding."

"And I guess that you already know that Theodore's apprenticed to that Runes Master, and that Zabini will be a teacher at Hogwarts," Crabbe continued.

"Better be nice to Zabini, or he'll dock points from you," Goyle jokingly told Dennis and Brad. "Man, how weird is that, to be housemates with the guy one year, and the next have to call him 'Professor'?"

"Well, actually, I've heard that since he's only an assistant teacher, he'll be given the title 'Master,'" Brad replied calmly. "When the Headmaster decides that he's ready to start teaching classes on his own, probably in a year or two, he'll be granted the title of 'Professor'. That's what my Dad told me, anyway--he's the accountant for one of the school governors, so he hears a lot of stuff about the school. He also heard something about Dumbledore hiring a new teacher from Japan, but I don't know what he or she is supposed to be teaching."

"What?" Dennis exclaimed. "Really? Who?"

"I just said I didn't know," Brad replied, a bit irritably.

"I can fill you in on that," Sirius said cheerfully. "Apparently the new teacher is someone that Dumbledore met in Japan. Your teacher's a he, by the way--his name is Tsubasa, and he's one of the crane people, like Professor Chizuru. He'll be assisting Professor McGonagall with her Transfiguration classes, and he was trained in swordplay by the tengu, so he'll be helping out in Physical Defense class as well."

This was the first that Harry had heard of it. "You never mentioned anything about this before," Harry said, a little accusingly.

"I only just heard about it myself," Sirius said. "One of the werewolves just mentioned it to me this morning." He turned to Ash. "He had dinner at your place the other night, right?"

"At Lukas's manor," Ash replied, blushing a little for some reason. "We were having a welcome back party for Takeshi and Aric, and he's Takeshi's cousin..."

"Well, I can see why Master Diggory would need someone to take over his classes, since Lady Narcissa will be having his baby soon," Brad said thoughtfully. "But why does McGonagall need an assistant?"

Professor McGonagall had always seemed very capable and in little need of assistance, except for the time that she'd been hospitalized after being struck down by an Auror while trying to keep Hagrid from being arrested during Harry's disastrous fifth year. 

"Professor McGonagall's not sick or something, is she?" Harry asked, suddenly worried.

"No, nothing like that," Sirius reassured him. "It's some sort of cultural exchange thing, I think, like when Chizuru and Karasu were here. I can ask Moony for more details."

"Tsubasa said something about the Headmaster wanting the students to get a different perspective on magic," Ash added, which seemed to confirm what Sirius had said.

"Oh, that's good," Harry said, feeling relieved. "I'm almost sorry that I graduated; it sounds like it might be fun taking lessons from him."

"We'll tell you all about it, Harry," Dennis promised.

"I kind of miss Physical Defense classes, especially the swordfighting, even though I always ended up with a lot of bruises," Harry said with a rueful grin.

"Well, maybe this new Professor might be willing to give you private lessons," Sirius said. "Kai says that Tsubasa promised to give Ash lessons; maybe he might be willing to teach both of you." Ash choked on his food, and Sirius asked, "Are you all right?"

The werewolf coughed, swallowed the mouthful of food, then took a sip of water before growling, "Yeah, I was just eating too fast, I guess." Then he gave Harry a brief, resentful glare, which bewildered Harry since Ash had always been friendly towards him before.

"Um...well, I'm kind of busy with work right now," Harry told his godfather. "I think it would be better if I concentrated on my Auror training for now."

"Very responsible of you, Harry," Kingsley said, smiling at Harry approvingly. "You'll make a good Auror."

Ash seemed to relax then, and joined in on the conversation as it turned to talk of the upcoming Quidditch season, smiling pleasantly as if nothing had happened, and leaving Harry to wonder what had caused the werewolf's brief ill-temper or if he had imagined the whole thing.

*** 

Ash felt a surge of jealousy at the thought of Harry joining his fencing lessons with Tsubasa. He didn't need a handsome young rival who was a legendary hero in the wizarding world, one without a disfiguring scar. Well, actually Harry did have a scar, but it was usually hidden by his hair, and anyway, the lightning-bolt-shaped scar on his forehead was a sign of his heroism, a proud reminder of the fact that he had defeated Voldemort, and certainly nothing to be ashamed of. While Ash was a scarred, scruffy, penniless werewolf...

Then Ash silently scolded himself for thinking like an idiot. Harry was dating Ginny Weasley, after all, and seemed to have no romantic or sexual interest in his own gender. And Ash himself wasn't penniless anymore now that he had a job at the Ministry. But it would put a damper on things if Harry ended up taking lessons with Ash; it would certainly be harder to flirt with Tsubasa and suggest that they go out for a drink after practice if Harry was around.

But then Harry decided that he was too busy with work for fencing lessons, and Ash smiled happily. Things were looking up again, and he couldn't wait for his first lesson...

*** 

Dylan returned from his visit to the Grangers, and Hermione stopped by Snape Manor with him to say hello to Snape and Lupin before starting her new apprenticeship--or apprenticeships, rather, since she was supposed to be training with both Mr. Jigger, the Apothecary, and Morrigan De Lacy, the lawyer who had defended Lukas during his trial. She wanted to become a Potions Mistress and eventually run the Apothecary's shop with Dylan, but she was also determined to become a lawyer so that she could fight for house-elf rights.

"We brought back some presents for you," Dylan said, handing Snape a box of candy. "And Hermione's parents said that if I was going to bring home sweets, I should bring back these, too." Hermione smiled sheepishly as Dylan gave Lupin a pair of toothbrushes.

"They can't help it; they're dentists," she said apologetically. "They used to hand out toothbrushes instead of candy on Halloween. Ours wasn't exactly the most popular house on the block, as you can imagine."

"Never mind, Hermione," Lupin chuckled. "It's a useful gift, and it was very thoughtful of them."

"We also brought back an electric toothbrush for Mr. Weasley, since he's so fond of Muggle devices," Dylan said. 

"A what?" Snape asked, and rolled his eyes when Hermione explained it to him. "Are Muggles so lazy that they can't be bothered to brush their own teeth and have to invent a device to do it for them?" Then he sighed and told Dylan, "Well, I suppose it can't hurt for you to curry a little favor with the Minister of Magic." He scowled and added sourly, "After all, my mother seems to have become Molly Weasley's new best friend."

"Did you enjoy your first visit to the Muggle world?" Lupin asked Dylan, ignoring Snape.

"It was so much fun!" Dylan enthused. "Mr. and Mrs. Granger were very nice, and I learned about all kinds of things--movies and television and computers. It's just not the same, reading about it in Muggle Studies. Oh, and I got to ride in a car! I wonder how hard it would be to enchant one to fly, like Mr. Weasley did?"

"Don't even think about it, Mr. Rosier," Snape said sternly, glowering at his foster son, who just laughed.

"And what did your parents think of your young suitor?" Lupin asked Hermione, grinning.

"Oh, he completely charmed them, of course," Hermione replied, grinning back at Lupin. "Mum just adores him, and Dad said that he seems like a fine young man. They were a little anxious when I first told them that I was dating Dylan, but now they're both relieved to know that my boyfriend is such an intelligent and well-mannered young man."

Dylan smiled innocently, looking positively angelic, and Lupin laughed while Snape snorted derisively.

"By the way, do you think that we could visit Rosier Manor before school starts?" Dylan asked. "I'd like to look through my father's things and introduce Hermione to the portraits." He grinned, with his father's rakish charm, and added, "After all, she'll most likely be living there with me someday." 

Hermione blushed and murmured, "I've arranged to rent a flat in town, near the Apothecary's, so that I'll be close to work."

"That will do for now," Dylan said, still grinning. "But remember that distance doesn't matter to a wizard; with Floo travel or Apparation, you can travel hundreds of miles in an instant. And someday, when you're Lady Rosier..."

"I can't wait to see Armand's face when you tell him that," Snape said dryly, referring to the portrait of the late Lord Rosier, Dylan's great-grandfather. Snape's thin lips curved slightly in a sardonic smile at the thought; he had little fondness for the arrogant portrait, and still remembered the disparaging comment Armand had once made about his nose. ("Judging by that nose, you must be a Snape," the portrait had told him, when Voldemort had sent him and Dylan to the mansion to retrieve the vampiric roses that were the Rosier family's secret weapon.)

That weekend, Snape, Lupin, and Dylan Apparated to Rosier Manor. Since Hermione had never been there before, Dylan Apparated her along with him. He had only recently received his official Apparation license, and normally Snape wouldn't have allowed a beginner to Apparate with another person, but Dylan wasn't really a beginner since he had been secretly practicing since the previous year, with Snape's approval. 

Besides, Dylan had proven to be as adept at Apparating as he was at all his other magical lessons, and Snape smiled a bit ruefully, thinking to himself that if it weren't for Dylan's incredible charm and charisma, the other students would all have hated him for being so perfect. Snape could still recall very vividly how much he had envied James Potter because things had seemed to come to him so easily--good grades, skill at Quidditch, popularity with the other students--without him having to work at it. Or so it had seemed to a bitterly jealous young Severus Snape.

But Dylan was smiling proudly at Hermione as they stood before the iron gates of Rosier Manor, and Lupin smiled at Snape questioningly, a look of concern in his eyes, and laid his hand on Snape's arm. So Snape shook off his brief bout of melancholy and said lightly, "Well then, lead the way, Lord Rosier."

Dylan placed his hand on the locked gates, and the rose-shaped crystal in his ring glowed red, and the gates swung open before them. (The ring had once belonged to Dylan's father Evan, and did not just symbolize the heirship of the Rosier family, but was a key to bypass the locks and protective wards on the estate.) The tangled, overgrown rosebushes that surrounded the mansion in a seemingly impenetrable wall obediently pulled apart and cleared a path for them.

"Wow!" Hermione exclaimed in an awed voice. "It's just like the tale of Sleeping Beauty."

"Except that there are no bodies of fallen princes impaled on the thorns of the roses," Dylan laughed. "At least, not that I know of. And there is no sleeping princess in the mansion."

"Good," Hermione said, firmly and a touch possessively. "Because I'm not letting you kiss any princesses, not even to awake them from an enchanted sleep."

"No princess could ever compare to you, my love," Dylan replied gallantly.

"He's very smooth, isn't he?" Lupin asked Snape, grinning. Even though he seemed reassured that Snape was all right, he still kept his hand on Snape's arm as they walked towards the mansion, and Snape did not object.

"As smooth as his father," Snape agreed, then paused and corrected himself, "Even smoother than Evan, actually."

The roses reached out every now and then to brush their petals affectionately against Dylan's hands or face, as if to acknowledge the return of their master. "These roses aren't vampiric like the ones that Voldemort used, are they?" Hermione asked nervously.

Dylan actually knew very little about the Rosier estate, since his father had died before he was born, and he had been raised on the Donner estate in Wales, so he looked to Snape instead of replying himself.

"No, they do not actually drink blood," Snape said. "However, the vines will lash out against intruders like barbed whips, and the thorns can inflict very nasty wounds. The Aurors who originally tried to seize the Rosier mansion after the first war ended were severely injured, and Bellatrix Lestrange was nearly killed when she tried to break into the Manor during the second war."

Hermione looked even more nervous than before, and Lupin said with good-natured sarcasm, "Thank you, Severus, for being so reassuring."

"Would you rather have the truth, or empty but comforting platitudes, Lupin?" Snape retorted, but without any real sharpness to his voice.

"I would always prefer the truth, Professor, even when it isn't very pleasant," Hermione replied earnestly before Lupin could answer. Snape said nothing, but nodded approvingly, and Dylan and Lupin grinned at him.

The doors of the mansion opened as easily for Dylan as the gates had, and they walked into the dark and dusty entrance hall, casting Lumos spells so that they could see where they were going. The family portraits lining the hall were dozing and snoring in their frames, but they began to stir and waken as the light fell over them.

Armand was the first portrait to fully awaken. A little warmth crept into his cold and arrogant face when he saw his great-grandson; perhaps the long and lonely years spent in a house with no living occupants had softened him up a little, or maybe it was just relief that the Rosier line had not completely died out. In any case, he greeted Dylan with the words, "Welcome home, child."

"Thank you, Great-Grandfather," Dylan said politely.

"I see you brought some friends with you," Armand added, eyeing Lupin, Snape, and Hermione with less enthusiasm. "Severus and the werewolf, I remember, but who is the young lady?"

"This is Hermione Granger," Dylan replied. "And Hermione, this is my great-grandfather, Armand Rosier."

Hermione curtsied gracefully before the portrait and said, "I am very pleased to meet you, Lord Armand."

"Well, actually it is young Dylan who is the Lord of the Rosier family now," Armand said, but he sounded pleased, and favored Hermione with a small smile. "Miss Granger appears to be a young lady of good breeding, but I am not familiar with the name 'Granger'. A lesser pureblood family, perhaps, a sub-branch of one of the older families...?"

Dylan and Hermione smiled at each other, looking amused, and Snape took great pleasure in breaking the news to Armand: "Actually, Miss Granger is Muggle-born."

"WHAT?!" Armand howled, his face contorting with rage and disbelief. "I won't stand for it! The Rosier line is one of the oldest and purest in the wizarding world, and I won't have it sullied by a Mud--"

"She is the future Lady Rosier and you will treat her with respect!" Dylan snapped. "I will marry Hermione and no one else!"

"He means it, too," Snape said cheerfully, quite enjoying the look of outrage on Armand's face. "He's as stubborn as Evan was."

"Dylan is the last living Rosier," Lupin pointed out in a kindly voice. "Isn't it better for you to have half-blood great-great-grandchildren than none at all? And besides, aren't many of the pureblood families suffering from too much inbreeding? Maybe adding new blood to the line will make it stronger."

Armand scowled, looking almost as sour as Snape faced with a classroom full of mischievous first-year Gryffindors. "And who told you that the pureblood families were inbred?" he asked in a scornful voice, although he did not outright deny Lupin's words.

"Selima Snape," Lupin replied pleasantly.

"Hmph!" Armand snorted. "That foreign girl that Severin married."

Selima's family, the Bashirs, had been living in Britain for over a decade before Severin and Selima had married, but Snape knew that the old pureblood families regarded anyone who had come to Britain less than several centuries ago as "newcomers". "She may have been foreign-born, but her blood is as pure as yours, Armand!" Snape snapped. "Purer, actually, since you consist not of flesh and blood, but of paint and canvas."

Hermione blushed while Armand spluttered and fumed. "You're all getting a little ahead of yourselves, speaking of marriage and heirs and grandchildren," she murmured. "Dylan and I aren't even engaged yet."

Dylan lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. "Ah, but you know that I am only waiting until I graduate from Hogwarts to propose, don't you, my love? I would like to be gainfully employed and able to support a wife before I wed."

Hermione smiled at him, but said a little tartly, "I am perfectly capable of supporting myself, Lord Rosier."

"To be your partner and equal, then," Dylan said with a smile, kissing her hand again. "So that the two of us can support each other throughout our lives."

"That, I can agree to," Hermione said, and kissed him.

"Ah, young love!" Lupin sighed happily. "Isn't it romantic?"

"I think that Dylan's been reading too many of Prospero's romance novels," Snape muttered under his breath.

"No Rosier has ever married a Muggle-born!" Armand wailed plaintively. "Not even a half-blood! For countless generations, our line has been pure and unsullied! Even that Ravenclaw girl that Evan took up with was a pureblood!"

"'That Ravenclaw girl' was my mother," Dylan snapped, glaring at the portrait. "And even if she wasn't a Slytherin, she came from one of the oldest pureblood families in the wizarding world, so there's no reason for you to turn your nose up at her!"

Armand looked as though he was about to argue further with his great-grandson, but Lupin said quietly, "Think, Lord Armand. Think of how empty and silent this house has been for nearly twenty years. Think of what it might be like to see this house come to life again, to hear children laughing and running through its halls."

Snape was going to tell Lupin that Armand wasn't the sentimental sort who would go all maudlin at the thought of children's laughter, but the portrait actually seemed to be considering Lupin's words, looking thoughtful and even a little wistful.

"If it makes you feel any better, Miss Granger graduated at the top of her class," Snape told Armand. "And Dylan has ranked at the top of his class standings every year that he's been at Hogwarts. Your hypothetical great-great-grandchildren will likely turn out to be intelligent and accomplished wizards." When Hermione grinned at him, he added coolly, "Although possibly somewhat bossy and frizzy-haired, if they take after their mother."

Hermione did not look in the least offended, and kept grinning at him. Snape sighed inwardly, feeling a bit of regret at the loss of his sinister reputation, and a bit of nostalgia for the days when he could make Miss Granger and her friends tremble with fear, even drive them to tears, with a menacing look and a few scathing words. But even then, she had never backed down and had stubbornly stood up to him--sometimes openly, as when she had questioned the way he had taken over Lupin's DADA class in her third year, and sometimes passively, by consistently doing such a good job in Potions class that he had no excuse to mark her down. 

He'd always felt a bit of grudging respect for her, and had often secretly wished that she'd been Sorted into Slytherin instead of Gryffindor--not that he had ever admitted that to anyone, not even Lupin, and certainly not Miss Granger. But whether he liked it or not, it seemed that she was going to become the bride of his foster son, and truthfully, the idea did not disturb Snape as much as he liked to pretend. He just hoped that their children would be Slytherins instead of Gryffindors.

"If you don't like it, you can always go live in the attic or the basement, where it's nice and dark and quiet," Dylan informed Armand in a no-nonsense tone of voice. He turned to the other portraits in the hall and added, "And that goes for you lot, too. I won't allow anyone, not even my own relatives, to insult my wife when we come to live at Rosier Manor."

An indignant outcry arose from the other paintings, but Armand smiled at Dylan in a resigned and yet somehow approving manner. "So...the Rosier Lord asserts his authority, by force and threat, if necessary. It is well. That is the Slytherin way, after all. And as the werewolf says, I am tired of living in an empty, lifeless house, and I would rather have half-blood heirs than none at all. Besides, the Rosier blood is surely strong enough to overcome any Muggle imperfections." He bowed to his great-grandson, a bit ironically, conceding defeat. "All hail the new Lord of the Rosier family, and his chosen bride!"

The other portraits in the hall reluctantly bowed their heads and said, if a bit sullenly, "Hail Lord Rosier, and his bride."

Having admitted defeat, Armand seemed much friendlier, and spent some time with Dylan chatting about Evan and all the mischief he had gotten into as a child. He directed them to the drawing room, where there were some family photo albums stored on a shelf. As Dylan looked through them, Armand suddenly popped up in an empty picture frame on the drawing room wall and said, "Elin used to keep those in here to show off to guests." Dylan and the others jumped, and Armand said smugly. "I have the ability to travel through any portrait in this house."

"Hmm," Dylan said, smiling wryly. "I'll have to keep that in mind when we come to live at Rosier Manor." He continued flipping through the albums, and his expression turned wistful as he stared at the images of his father--a little boy with curly black hair and a mischievous smile, forever young and happy in the photographs as he laughed and waved at the unseen photographers. Evan's parents posed in some of the photos with him; his mother Elin had the same mischievous smile as her son, while his father Julien was much more serious and stern-looking, although the expression on his face would soften slightly in the photos as he smiled down at his son.

"No one ever came to tea at Rosier Manor without being forced to see Evan's baby pictures," Armand continued. "Elin doted on that boy and spoiled him rotten..." His voice trailed off and he sighed sadly. What he left unspoken, because everyone here already knew, was that Evan's parents had doted on him so much that they had allowed him to do whatever he wanted--including joining the Death Eaters, over Armand's protests. 

Armand had not really been morally opposed to the killing of Muggles, but he had always been a practical man, and his portrait had retained that sense of practicality even after his death. War was dangerous, and Armand had not wanted his grandson to risk his life by getting involved with Voldemort's war on the wizarding world, but Evan had been seduced by the Dark Lord's propaganda, and his parents had never been able to deny their son anything. And in the end, they had all died, slain in battle by Aurors.

Dylan closed the photo album he was holding, his expression somber. "May I borrow these, Great-Grandfather?" he asked politely. "I promise that I'll take good care of them and return them to the Manor when I'm done."

"Go ahead; you needn't ask my permission," Armand said gruffly. "As you so pointedly reminded me, you are the Lord of the Rosier family now. This mansion and everything in it belongs to you."

Dylan and Hermione smiled, then decided to explore Evan's room next. "Second floor, first door on the left," Armand directed them, then vanished from the picture frame, presumably to follow them to the second floor. Lupin lingered behind in the drawing room, chuckling softly.

"What's so funny?" Snape asked suspiciously.

"It's just that Armand reminded me a little of you just now," Lupin replied, smiling at him, his lips curved in a smile of tender amusement. "Is that a Slytherin trait, to act all gruff and grumpy to cover up any sign of sentimentality?"

"Oh, shut up, Lupin," Snape growled, sounding more like a wolf than Lupin at the moment, then stalked off after Dylan and Hermione. Lupin followed, still chuckling to himself.

Evan Rosier's room had not changed since he had left home to move into his own flat at age eighteen. It looked like the room of a typical teenage boy, with posters of Quidditch teams on the wall, old school textbooks on a bookcase, and a few magic tricks and joke items from Zonko's scattered across the desk. Hanging in the closet were a few spare robes and old Hogwarts uniforms, slightly moth-eaten. There was nothing in the room to indicate that the occupant had been a Death Eater. 

Dylan wandered around the room pensively, glancing through the books and briefly picking up and looking at the magic tricks on the desk. Then he sat down on the bed, looking a little overwhelmed, and a concerned Hermione sat beside him. He slipped an arm around her waist, drawing her closer, and she laid her head on his shoulder. Lupin motioned to Snape, and they quietly slipped out of the room.

"I think Hermione can best comfort him now," Lupin murmured, then smiled. "Besides, the two of them haven't had much chance to be alone together up until now."

"You never know, Lupin," Snape said in a tone of Slytherin superiority, although privately he thought that Lupin was probably right. "We Slytherins can be quite resourceful when we put our minds to it."

Lupin grinned and wrapped his arms around Snape. "Yes, it was difficult, but you and I found ways to steal moments alone together at Hogwarts."

"Must you do that in the hallowed halls of Rosier Manor?" Armand complained; he had jumped from the drawing room to another picture frame hanging in the hallway outside of Evan's room.

"Oh, shut up!" Snape snarled at Armand, then barked at Lupin, "And you, cut that out!" Lupin laughed and released his lover.

Dylan soon regained his composure, and they explored a little further, finding the room where Elin Rosier used to brew her potions, along with a notebook filled with handwritten potion recipes. But the mansion was too large to fully explore in one day, and Dylan was growing a little weary, emotionally if not physically.

Armand looked a little lonely when they bid him goodbye, and told his great-grandson wistfully, "Stop by again sometime."

"I will," Dylan promised. "I'll come by again before school starts." He glanced around at the dust coating the walls and the floor, and the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. "Perhaps we can clean up a bit next time."

"The Rosier family doesn't have a house-elf?" Lupin asked curiously. Hermione frowned disapprovingly at him, and Lupin smiled at her and said, "I'm just asking, Hermione; I'm not saying that I condone the servitude of house-elves. But the Rosier family is one of the oldest in the wizarding world, along with the Blacks, Malfoys, and Snapes, and the other three families all have or had house-elves."

"We did," Armand sighed. "But it followed Julien and Elin when they set out on their suicidal mission to avenge Evan. No doubt it wanted to die along with them, for a house-elf with no family to serve has no purpose in life. We didn't know then that Ariane was pregnant with Evan's heir." The portrait glanced at Hermione and sighed again. "Well, at least the Rosier bloodline will not die out." Then in a more hopeful voice he added, "If your half-blood children marry purebloods, then the next generation will have three-quarters pure blood. That's not really so bad. And if the generation after that also marry purebloods..."

They Apparated back to Snape Manor and left Armand doing division and plotting out the course of the Rosier family, and if he was not precisely happy, he seemed almost content. "I didn't have the heart to tell him that I intend to let my children marry whomever they please, no matter whether they're purebloods or Muggle-born," Dylan said with a grin. 

"Never mind," Snape said practically. "It will pacify him and keep him occupied for several years, until you actually do have children. And even then, it will be many more years before the children start taking an interest in the opposite sex. You really don't want to live in a house with a screaming portrait, like Black and his harridan of a mother."

Lupin grinned impishly and said, "Of course, it's possible that the children might take an interest in the same sex, which might open up a whole other can of worms..."

"I still say you're all getting ahead of yourselves, talking about children," Hermione protested, blushing again. 

Dylan laughed and kissed Hermione on the cheek. "Yes, you're right as always, Hermione! First things first; I'll concentrate on graduating from Hogwarts and passing my N.E.W.T.s. before we start planning for a family."

"You'll pass with flying colors, I'm sure," Hermione said, smiling.

"Well, of course," Dylan said with the charming, insolent grin that was so much like his father's. "But it would be immodest of me to say so myself."

Hermione rolled her eyes and everyone laughed, even Snape, who dared to hope that maybe this year, things would go smoothly at Hogwarts, with no Death Eater attacks or fake werewolf conspiracies. After all, Potter had finally graduated, and the boy seemed to draw trouble to him like a magnet even when--Snape grudgingly admitted to himself--he didn't intend to. With Potter gone, maybe Snape's headaches would vanish, too. 

The Potions Master grinned, looking forward to a year with nothing to worry about other than the current crop of Gryffindor first-years. And while there would no doubt be a few troublemakers among them, he was certain that none of them could compare to Potter and his friends.

*** 

For years, Laura Madley had not known that she was not really an only child; she was ten years old when she found out that she'd once had an older brother. It had happened solely by accident, when Laura had accompanied her mother to the little general store in the village to buy a few groceries and supplies...

Mother had given Laura a few Sickles to buy a treat for herself, and she was trying to decide what kind of candy to get when the elderly mother of the store owner had approached her. Laura had overheard her mother saying once that Mrs. Smith was a bit dotty, but Laura thought she was nice enough, just a bit forgetful; that happened sometimes when people got old, Father said. 

Mrs. Smith couldn't remember a conversation that she'd had with someone yesterday, but she could recall perfectly something that had happened twenty years ago. She no longer worked the register because she would forget who had paid her and how much change she should give, but she still liked to keep busy in the store tidying up and arranging things on the shelves. And she was always nice to Laura, and would often slip her a piece of candy; she sometimes forgot Laura's name, but Mrs. Smith loved children, and was kind to any child who came into the store.

On this particular day, Mrs. Smith seemed to remember who Laura was. "Such a pretty girl, just like your mother," she said, patting Laura on the head.

Laura thought she was a little too old to be patted on the head, but refrained from saying so, since she didn't want to hurt Mrs. Smith's feelings. So all she said was, "Thank you," and she meant it sincerely, because she thought that her mother was very beautiful. 

"It's so sad about young Ethan," Mrs. Smith sighed sadly, then smiled at Laura. "But at least your parents had you, dearie, a blessing to comfort them after they lost your brother."

"What?!" Laura exclaimed, wondering if Mrs. Smith really had gone dotty after all. But then she heard Mother cry out in dismay, looking pale and horrified, while Mrs. Smith's son frantically apologized and tried to hush his mother. And then she knew that, incredible as it was, Mrs. Smith's words must be true.

Laura's mother ignored her questions, grabbed her by the arm, and immediately Apparated home, not even pausing to pick up the groceries they had come for. Mother summoned Father home from work at the farm, and Laura strained to overhear the argument coming from behind the closed door of Father's study.

"Damn that old woman!" Father cursed.

"She can't know, Alden," Mother wept hysterically. "We both agreed that she shouldn't know, that we would never talk about it--!"

"I know, dammit! But now it's too late to put the cat back in the bag!" Father snapped, then cursed some more, saying some bad words that Laura wasn't supposed to know. He sounded angry and a little frightened, which in turn frightened Laura, because she had never known her father to be scared of anything. Finally, Father said in a resigned voice, "I suppose it was unrealistic to think that we could keep it hidden forever. It's only because this is such a small village that we've managed so far."

"Since everyone here is dependent upon your wealth," Mother sneered in a bitter voice.

Father said nothing in reply to that, but Laura heard his footsteps moving towards the door, and she quickly ran back to her own room. Her father joined her a few minutes later, sitting next to her on the edge of the bed.

"Father?" Laura asked hesitantly. "Is it true that I have a brother?"

"Yes," Father replied, sighing heavily. "Or rather, I should say that you had a brother. He died about a year before you were born."

"Oh," Laura said, stunned into silence for a moment. Then all the questions that she wanted to ask suddenly came tumbling out of her mouth. "Was his name 'Ethan'? That's what Mrs. Smith said. How did he die? Why haven't you ever told me about him before? Why--"

Father held up his hand to stem the flow of questions and said wearily, "One at a time. Yes, his name was 'Ethan'. He died in an accident when he was twelve years old."

"What kind of accident?" Laura asked. "Why haven't you ever told me about him before?"

Father rubbed his temples as if his head hurt, and sighed again. "It was an accident," he repeated, without elaborating further. "As for why we never told you, his death is a very painful memory for your mother and me. Your birth was, as Mrs. Smith said, a blessing to us. We had been trying for several years to have a child...I mean, another child, but we had given up hope that it would ever happen. And then your mother got pregnant a few months after Ethan died; it seemed like a miracle. We wanted to start over again, and leave the past behind us."

Laura frowned. Somehow, that didn't sound right. As young as she was, death had already touched her life a couple of times. Great-Aunt Ernestine had died last year, and Laura had accompanied her parents to the funeral, although no one there had seemed very sad or upset about the old woman's death; Laura had barely known Ernestine herself, having met her great-aunt only a handful of times at family gatherings. 

And one of her father's farm workers, John Zeller, had lost a cousin to illness the year before that. Laura had not gone to that funeral, but her father had sent flowers. No one had ever tried to pretend that Great-Aunt Ernestine and John's cousin didn't exist. John would even speak sadly but fondly of his cousin, recalling childhood adventures that they had shared together. And when her best friend Rosie's pet bird had died, they'd given it a little burial and put flowers on its grave.

So it seemed wrong to pretend that Ethan had never existed, to give his death even less attention than a pet bird's. In a way, having everyone forget about you after you were dead seemed even worse than dying. The thought was a little scary to Laura; if she died, would her parents forget about her the way that they had forgotten about her brother? 

"What was he like?" Laura asked anxiously, feeling a need to preserve the memory of her brother even if no one else did, so that he wouldn't just disappear. "Do you have any pictures of him? Can we go put flowers on his grave?"

Father clenched his teeth and a dark cloud seemed to fall over his face, and Laura flinched a little. Father hardly ever got angry, but when he did, he looked like that. He usually only got mad and lost his temper after he'd been drinking too much at the pub, and he'd come home and fight with Mother. 

Laura always hid in her room when they fought, covering her ears to block out her father's deep, booming voice (which reminded her of a thunderstorm; she hated thunder, so maybe that was why it scared her when Father got angry, or maybe it was the other way around and she hated thunder because it reminded her of Father when he was angry).

Father didn't shout, but he said in a stern, implacable voice, "No," and Laura felt her heart sink. Alden Madley was a doting father, and Laura could usually cajole him into giving her what she wanted, but when he spoke in that voice, she knew that there was no changing his mind. The farm workers always said that when Mr. Madley made a decision, it was set in stone.

Still, Laura protested weakly, "But..."

Father shook his head. "I know you mean well, Laura, but just let it go. Please. The reason we don't talk about Ethan is because it's very painful for us. Your mother was devastated when he died. You don't want to make your mother cry, do you?"

"No, but..."

"There's a good girl," Father said, kissing the top of Laura's head. "Now go get cleaned up and get ready for dinner, and I don't want you to say another word about this, all right?" 

He left before Laura could argue further, and she went down to dinner intending to ask about Ethan again, even if it was useless, even if it made Father mad. How could she possibly just drop it, after suddenly discovering that she had a brother that she'd never known about?

But then she saw her mother sitting at the dinner table, her eyes red from crying, her beautiful face looking pale and haggard. She looked awful, like she'd been sick for a week. And her eyes...they didn't just look sad, but also fearful and strangely guilty. Laura didn't understand why her mother should feel guilty about Ethan's death, but maybe she blamed herself somehow. Maybe she was supposed to have been watching him, and he slipped off and got into trouble. Although he had been twelve when he died, so it wasn't as if he had been a toddler who might crawl into the creek and drown by accident or something like that. 

But it was still possible for even a twelve-year-old to get into trouble. In the rainy season, the water flowing through the creek grew deeper and faster than normal, and the children were cautioned not to swim in it. And Jimmy, one of the farm worker's children, had fallen out of a tree he'd been climbing and broken his arm. He'd gotten a thorough scolding from his mother, who had told him that he was lucky he hadn't broken his neck.

Whatever the reason behind her brother's death, Laura found herself unable to pursue the matter further with her parents. They looked relieved when she said nothing more about Ethan, and after a few days, things returned to normal in the Madley household.

But Laura did not forget about her brother, and silently resolved to somehow find out more about him without involving her parents. Laura didn't want to hurt her mother, but she wanted to know what kind of person her brother had been. After all, what Mother didn't know wouldn't hurt her, right?

So she questioned the workers at the farm when her father wasn't around; most of them, including John, her friend Rosie's father, had been working there for many years, long enough to have been there when Ethan was still alive. But they all refused to tell her anything, saying that her father had forbidden it and they didn't want to get in trouble.

"I promise that I won't tell Father what you told me," Laura pleaded, but they just shook their heads apologetically and remained silent.

"Have you ever heard your parents mention anything about my brother?" Laura desperately asked Rosie.

"You've got to stop this, Laura," Rosie said crossly. "Do you want Daddy to get fired for disobeying Mr. Madley?"

"Father would never do that!" Laura protested.

"Oh yes he would," Rosie retorted. "Your father's a good man, but strict, that's what my daddy always says. He won't hold with anyone who breaks his rules. Haven't you noticed that Mrs. Smith doesn't work at the general store anymore? That's because your father was angry that she let it slip about your brother, and he said he'd take his business elsewhere if she kept hanging around the store upsetting children by telling tales about things that should remain buried in the past." Laura's father was the wealthiest man in the village, and the general store would suffer if he and his workers stopped shopping there, since they made up most of its business.

"Oh!" Laura cried in dismay. "I never meant for that to happen!" Mrs. Smith kept working in the store even after she officially retired and her son took over because sitting around at home all day was too boring, she said. But now that had been taken away from her, and Laura felt partly to blame. Maybe if she hadn't asked Father about Ethan, he wouldn't have gotten so upset with Mrs. Smith. "I'll talk to Father--"

"No!" Rosie said, looking alarmed. "Then I'll get in trouble for telling you about it."

"But because of me, Mrs. Smith..."

"Oh, it's not your fault, Laura," Rosie hastily assured her. "You didn't know that your dad would get so upset about it. And anyway, I don't think it's just because of you. Your mum was pretty upset, wasn't she? Even if you hadn't said anything, your dad would probably still have told Mr. Smith to keep his mother at home from now on. Please, Laura, please just forget about all this."

"How can I just forget about my brother?" Laura demanded.

"It's not as if you ever knew him," Rosie said bluntly, though not unkindly. "It might be worth getting into trouble over if he were still alive and you had a chance to meet him, but he's dead. Why are you getting so upset about someone you never met?"

"It's just so sad," Laura wept. "That everyone's forgotten about him. It's like he never existed. If I died, I'd want people to remember me. I mean, I wouldn't want them to cry all the time or anything, but I'd want them to remember me and talk about me sometimes."

"Don't say stuff like that," Rosie said nervously.

"I just think someone ought to remember him, that's all," Laura sniffled.

"It's not that people don't remember him, Miss Laura," Rosie's father John said gently. He had come up behind the girls unnoticed while they were talking. He glanced around, as if to make sure that Laura's father was not within earshot before continuing, "It's just that it makes them sad, so they don't talk about it."

"Then you did know Ethan!" Laura said eagerly, wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hand. "Please tell me about him!"

"I can't," John said unhappily, and he looked both sad and guilty, reminding Laura of her mother and making her even more curious. How had Ethan died, that everyone should feel so guilty about it? "I promised your father that I wouldn't. I've already said too much as it is." 

Laura felt ready to burst into tears again, in frustration this time, at having the knowledge of her brother so tantalizingly close and yet denied to her. John must have noticed, because he sighed, then said kindly, "I'm sure that Ethan would be happy to know that you're thinking about him, Miss Laura. Even if you can't talk about him because it would trouble your parents, he still exists in your heart. You said that's all you wanted, for someone to remember him. He won't be forgotten so long as you remember him."

"But how can I remember him when I don't know anything about him?" Laura argued. "Not even what he looked like!"

"Think of him like...like an angel," John said hastily, beginning to look a little nervous, glancing around again. "Watching over you from Heaven. No one's ever seen an angel, at least, no one living today, but people still believe in them."

Laura frowned, not entirely convinced or comforted by his words. "I suppose..."

"I really have to get back to work now," John said. "Please don't say anything more to your father."

Laura reluctantly nodded. "I won't, I promise. I wouldn't want to get you in trouble with Father."

"Good lass," John said, looking relieved. He started to leave, then hesitated and bent down to whisper in Laura's ear, "He had hazel eyes, just like you and your mother." Then he quickly walked away before Laura could question him further.

*** 

So a vague image of a hazel-eyed boy was all that Laura had of her mysterious brother, but she held it in her heart, and stubbornly resolved that someday she would find out more about him. And no matter what happened, she would never forget him, even if everyone else did. She looked through all the family photo albums, taking them out of the closet when Mother and Father weren't around, but found no pictures of her brother in them. She wondered if her parents had thrown them out, or if they might be hidden somewhere.

Laura tried snooping around a bit, but her father was watching her closely, and she was afraid that if she made him suspicious, he might destroy any remaining pictures of Ethan, so she gave up her search for the moment. And before long, she was caught up in the excitement of getting ready to start school at Hogwarts, and had no time to look for mementos of her brother. And once she was at school, she was of course unable to continue her search.

Laura was Sorted into Hufflepuff, where the older students were kind to her and the other first-years, making them feel welcome and helping them to get settled in. In the other Houses, the older kids would sometimes tease the new students, although it was mostly in fun. But she heard that in Slytherin, the teasing could sometimes get nasty, so she was grateful to be a Hufflepuff, where even the Quidditch team captain, Cedric Diggory, was never too busy to say hello to an awestruck first-year and ask how they were doing.

At first her lessons kept her busy, and then the excitement of the Triwizard Tournament being held at Hogwarts during her very first year. And then there was the horror of Cedric's death, and whispered rumors about You-Know-Who's return, and somehow Laura's need to learn more about her brother became less urgent compared to the growing fear of war breaking out.

But she never forgot Ethan entirely. She often wistfully fantasized about what it would be like if he had lived. She imagined a protective and caring older brother who would help her with her homework and give her advice about how to get along with her classmates and teachers. She imagined someone brave and handsome and kind, a bit like Cedric Diggory. Maybe if Ethan had lived, he might have been a Quidditch star like Cedric, too. She imagined him taking her for rides on his broom and giving her pointers on how to fly, which would have come in handy, since her flying lessons at Hogwarts had not gone very well. 

She did excel at Herbology, though, working very hard in Professor Sprout's class because she wanted to work alongside Father at the farm when she graduated. She sighed sadly, thinking of how she and Ethan could have run the farm together someday in the nebulous future after Father retired, but now that would never happen.

Rosie entered Hogwarts the year after Laura, and much to both girls' delight, she was Sorted into Hufflepuff. Although they were in different years, Rosie was still Laura's best friend and main confidant, and the only person she could talk to about Ethan. She knew that her practical friend secretly thought that she was a bit silly to be constantly fantasizing about an imaginary brother, but like the good friend and loyal Hufflepuff that she was, Rosie patiently listened to all Laura's wistful fantasies without complaint. And in return, Laura kept her promise to John and Rosie, and never mentioned Ethan in front of her parents. 

Finally You-Know-Who's return was confirmed, and the Death Eaters escaped from Azkaban not once, but twice, and Laura worried less about her dead brother and more about the safety of her parents--the Death Eaters despised anyone who was not a pureblood, and her father was a Muggle-born. 

Meanwhile, her parents worried about her; Laura felt fairly safe at Hogwarts under the protection of the Headmaster and the magical wards that guarded the school, but her father was outraged that Dumbledore would endanger the students by hiring (or actually, rehiring) a werewolf teacher. He considered pulling her out of Hogwarts, but there was no other school of magic in Britain, and neither of her parents wanted to send her far away to a foreign country, and Laura was relieved when they allowed her to remain at Hogwarts. 

She liked Professor Lupin when she got to know him, and tried to tell her parents how nice he was, but neither of them listened to her, and it only made them both upset, so eventually she stopped trying. Master Bleddri (who later became Master Diggory), was sterner than Lupin, and she was a little scared of him at first, but gradually she realized that he was a nice person too, in his own way. He was gruff, but he was kind, and he drove his students hard in Physical Defense class because he wanted to make sure that they learned how to protect themselves.

By the end of Laura's fourth year, the Death Eater threat was over and the wizarding world was at peace, and she finally had some time to begin thinking about Ethan again. She had almost given up hope of ever finding out the truth about him, but a unique opportunity presented itself towards the end of summer. Father was off on a business trip, and Mother received an unexpected invitation to a tea party from an old school friend who had been living abroad for several years and had just returned to England.

"Are you sure you'll be all right?" Mother asked. "I feel a bit guilty running off to London and leaving you all alone. Perhaps you could come along..."

"Please, Mother, I'm old enough to spend an afternoon alone without a baby-sitter," Laura protested good-naturedly. "My name isn't on the invitation, and it would be rude to show up uninvited. Besides, you and your friends won't be able to have fun gossiping if I'm around, right?"

Mother giggled girlishly; she still looked young enough to almost be a schoolgirl herself. Laura's housemates always remarked on what a young and beautiful mother she had, which always made her feel very proud. "Well, if you're sure, dear," Mother said. "I always think of you as my little girl, but you're becoming quite the young lady, aren't you?" She kissed Laura on the cheek and said, "I'll bring you back a present from London. You're sure that you'll be all right?"

"I'll be fine, Mother," Laura assured her. "Have fun at your party." 

As soon as she was sure that her mother was gone, Laura rushed up to the attic. She'd never had time to do a thorough search, since she was rarely in the house alone. Packed away in trunks and boxes, she found old clothes, old toys and baby things she had outgrown, and some Muggle devices that her father's parents had sent as gifts--things like an electric lamp, a toaster, a clock radio. But Father hated being reminded of his Muggle origins, so he had put them all into storage without even taking them out of their original boxes. There had been no Muggle gifts recently, though, since Laura's grandparents had died in a car accident a couple of years ago.

In another trunk, Laura found her mother's wedding dress, which had been packed away rather carelessly, crumpled as if it had just been tossed in there without being neatly folded, and no preservation spells had been cast on it, so the white silk had yellowed slightly with age. She wondered if that was indicative of the state of her parents' marriage. 

They seemed to live harmonious but completely separate lives: Father spent his days on the farm, occasionally traveling to London on business trips, while Mother looked after the house, with regular trips to London--separate from Father's--to go shopping, or see friends, or take in a play or concert. They slept in separate bedrooms and rarely spent much time together except at the dinner table, where they rarely said anything more to each other than "Please pass the salt". 

They didn't really fight, except when Father drank too much, but they didn't seem to have anything in common except for Laura. They were both loving parents and doted on Laura, but even that, they did separately: Father would sometimes take Laura down to the farm to spend the day with him, and Mother would often take Laura to London on her shopping trips, but the three of them almost never went anywhere together.

As a young child, this had all seemed perfectly normal to Laura, since she had never known anything else. But after she started going to school at Hogwarts, she learned that not all married couples were so distant. Most of her Hufflepuff classmates seemed to come from very close families, and she had even witnessed some of her friends' parents being affectionate with each other when they visited the school during Quidditch matches. Laura had never witnessed her own parents exchanging even a quick kiss or hug.

But many of the pureblood children, especially the Slytherins, had parents who were cool and indifferent to each other, and sometimes even outright hostile, because they had made arranged marriages for political and financial reasons, not for love. Which made Laura wonder for a moment if her parents' marriage had been arranged, but she didn't really think so. On the rare occasions that Father fought with Mother, it was usually about Mother's supposed pureblood snobbery. And Mother's family seemed to look down on Father for being Muggle-born, so it seemed unlikely that they would have arranged for her to marry him. 

Laura sighed, then folded up the wedding dress and packed it away again. Maybe her parents had been in love when they first married, but drifted apart over time. Maybe it was even because of Ethan's death; she had overheard Professor Sprout saying that a child's death could be hard on a family, although she had been talking about the Diggorys at the time.

After searching for about two hours, Laura was nearly ready to give up. She was tired and dirty and sweaty, and she needed to get cleaned up before Mother came home. But she noticed a small, dusty trunk that she had almost overlooked, shoved into a corner at the very back of the attic.

After a brief flare of hope, she was disappointed to see that it contained only books, but she took them out and looked through them nevertheless. The very last book that she lifted out of the trunk was an old, battered book of fairy tales, the spine so creased that it was almost ready to fall apart. As she carefully opened the book, a photograph fell out and fluttered down to the floor.

Her hand trembling with excitement, Laura picked it up; it was a picture of Mother, Father, and a boy about nine or ten years old. Mother and Father had the kind of slightly forced, stiff smiles that people often wore in photos, while the boy smiled warily at the camera, as if watching for some kind of threat. His eyes were hazel, like her own and like Mother's, but his hair was straight and dark brown, unlike Laura's and Mother's wavy, light reddish-brown hair, or Father's hair, which was blond (now turning to gray). He had high cheekbones that gave his face a sharper, more angular look than Mother's softer features and heart-shaped face, but Laura thought that he was a nice-looking boy and probably would have grown into a handsome man if he had lived. Assuming that this was Ethan, of course, because who else could it be?

She leafed through the book hopefully, but found no other pictures. However, written on the inside of the cover in shaky block letters, as if inscribed by a child, was the name "Ethan Madley," which seemed to confirm the boy's identity. Laura packed away the other books (after double-checking them to make sure that there were no other photos or clues hidden inside them), but she kept the battered fairy tale book and the photograph, hiding them in her room, and later packing them in her trunk to take with her to Hogwarts when summer vacation ended.

When their parents saw them off at the train station, Laura noticed that Rosie looked nervous and excited about something, as if she had a secret that she was just bursting to tell. And Laura had her own secret that she wanted to tell Rosie; she had not yet had a chance to tell her about the photo she had found.

Once they were on the train and alone in a compartment together, they said simultaneously, "I have something to tell you!" Then Rosie smiled and said, "You go first."

"I found a picture of Ethan!" Laura said excitedly, and took out the photo and the book, explaining how she had found them in the attic. "I may not know anything else about him, but at least I finally know what he looked like! Now you tell me yours."

"It's about your brother," Rosie said, lowering her voice to a whisper even though there was no one else around. "I found out how he died."

"What?!" Laura shouted.

"Shhh!" Rosie hissed. "And you have to promise not to tell your parents what I told you!"

"I promise," Laura said solemnly. "On my honor as a Hufflepuff."

Rosie nodded, looking satisfied. "Okay then," she whispered, leaning close. "I overheard Mum and Dad talking late one night after I was supposed to be asleep. They were worried about Dumbledore and the Minister of Magic showing so much favoritism to werewolves, and about those werewolf attacks that happened."

"But those weren't really werewolf attacks!" Laura protested. "That Auror Williamson faked them!" She added reluctantly, "And Mr. Diggory," because it was shameful that a graduate of their House had been involved in such a thing. And very sad, too, because she had liked Cedric, and his father had always seemed like such a nice man.

"I know that," Rosie said impatiently. "But I couldn't argue with Mum and Dad, seeing as how I was supposed to be in bed asleep. And then I found out why they don't like us having werewolf teachers at Hogwarts even though I've told them that Professor Lupin and Master Diggory are nice people. Ethan was killed by a werewolf!"

"What?" Laura gasped.

"That's what Daddy said," Rosie continued, still speaking in a hushed voice. "He had a fight with your parents and ran off to spend the night in the woods."

"A fight? What about?" Laura asked.

Rosie shook her head. "I don't know, but it sounded like something that happened pretty often, like your parents weren't too worried about it at first. But that night was a full moon, and a werewolf had wandered into the woods; they heard it howling..."

"Oh," Laura said, her eyes filling with tears, "what a horrible way to die!"

"Apparently they never found the body--"

"Then he could still be alive!" Laura said, grasping at hope.

"If he was alive, why didn't he ever come home?" Rosie objected. "Anyway, they caught the werewolf, and he admitted to doing it. He was a peddler passing through the village, and they caught him in the next town over. His robes were stained with blood, and he confessed as soon as he was brought to the Ministry for questioning. He felt guilty, I guess, about killing a child. He said that he hadn't meant to hurt anybody; he had tried to restrain himself before the full moon--there was no Wolfsbane Potion back then--but he managed to break free and...well..." 

Her voice trailed off for a moment, then she cleared her throat and continued, "Anyway, he remembered attacking your brother, but I guess he couldn't remember exactly where it happened. They searched the woods, but they never found Ethan's body, but they were still able to convict the werewolf, since he confessed."

"What happened to him?" Laura whispered.

Rosie shrugged. "Sent to Azkaban, I guess. I was hoping to hear more, but Dad said they'd better stop talking about that stuff. The past can't be changed, he said, and Mr. Madley would get angry if he knew they were talking about it." Looking at Laura's stricken face, she said guiltily, "I'm sorry, Laura. It's not exactly good news, is it?"

But Laura hugged her friend tightly and whispered, "Thank you, Rosie. Even if it's not good news, I still wanted to know about my brother. At least now I know what happened to him. Thank you for being such a good friend." And she thought she knew now why Mother felt so guilty about Ethan's death. She must feel bad that they'd quarreled, and probably blamed herself for him running off into the woods where he'd gotten killed.

"You're welcome," Rosie said, hugging her back. "But now that you know the truth, do you think you can finally let it go? I mean, you've spent all these years obsessing about your brother...I guess I can't really blame you. I'd be curious too, if I had a brother I'd never met, but your parents..."

"I know," Laura sighed. "I guess it must be really hard for them. They probably blame themselves for what happened. I won't ask them about it again." She smiled sadly and gently caressed her brother's picture with her fingers. "I'd like to know more about him, but this is enough. I'll remember him and keep him in my heart, like your dad said I should. At least I can picture his face now."

Rosie scrutinized the photograph more closely. "You know, he doesn't really look much like your mum or your dad. Except for his eyes; they look just like yours."

"I'm glad," Laura said softly. "I guess it's silly, but it makes me feel closer to him, like it's something we share."

And then a couple of fellow Hufflepuffs opened the door to the compartment and asked if they could sit with them, so Laura welcomed them in and quickly put away the photo and book. She joined in the gossip with the others, talking about summer vacation and the upcoming school year, feeling very content with that image of her brother in her mind and in her heart. She was still curious about Ethan, but for now it was enough that she had a face to go with the name.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blaise finishes his summer job at the museum and starts his new job at Hogwarts; the Aurors encounter the daughter of a Death Eater at the museum, and ask Snape for advice; Ash's attempts to court Tsubasa do not go according to plan.

It was the end of his shift, and Blaise was changing out of his uniform and into his street clothes. He was looking forward to starting his new job at Hogwarts next week, but he had enjoyed his summer job as a docent at the Museum of Wizarding History. It didn't pay much, but it had given him some ideas for the History of Magic lessons he would be soon be teaching. He wondered if the Headmaster would allow him to bring his classes on a field trip to the museum; perhaps the students would take more of an interest in History if it was something that they could actually see and touch instead of just dry words on a page.

The sound of a crash from the hall outside the locker room distracted Blaise from his thoughts, and he peered out the doorway to see what was going on. A blond wizard with thick-lensed spectacles was carrying a cardboard box overflowing with books and papers, and he had apparently dropped a stack of books on the floor.

"Ah, Mr. Zabini!" the Director of the museum called. "Could you give us a hand?"

"Of course, sir," Blaise replied, and picked up the dropped books. 

"Thank you, Mr. Zabini," the Director said. "This is Professor Bletchley, the latest addition to the staff. Professor, this is Mr. Zabini, one of our docents, who will soon be leaving us to take a position at Hogwarts."

"Nice to meet you," Bletchley said with a friendly grin. He had shoulder-length blond hair pulled back in a loose tail, but several strands had come loose and were falling across his face; he shook his head impatiently in an attempt to get them out of his eyes. "I'd offer to shake your hand, but mine are a bit full at the moment."

"No problem, sir," Blaise said, smiling back at him. "Can I help you carry these?"

"That would be a great help, Mr. Zabini," the Director said before Bletchley could reply, so Blaise followed them to the new staff member's office. "We're very lucky to have obtained the services of such a respected scholar," the Director informed Blaise, who nodded politely, while Bletchley looked a bit embarrassed.

The Director left after seeing them to the office, but Blaise stayed to help Bletchley unpack and shelve his books. "Are you related to Miles Bletchley, Professor?" he asked. "We were housemates together at Hogwarts; I was a year behind him in Slytherin." Professor Bletchley looked a little like Miles, although he was less brawny than the former Slytherin Keeper and at least fifteen years older; he appeared to be in his mid-to-late thirties.

"Oh, please don't call me 'Professor'!" Bletchley groaned good-naturedly. "It's really more of an honorary title, since I did a few guest lectures at Durmstrang. I'm not really a teacher, but a scholar who specializes in ancient magical artifacts. Please call me 'Henry'. Oh, and Miles is my cousin, by the way."

"Then please call me 'Blaise,'" Blaise said politely. "Wait a minute...Henry Bletchley? Aren't you the one who--?" He broke off mid-sentence, belatedly realizing that his question was rather rude, but Henry just laughed.

"Yes, I'm the one who got turned into a toad at my grandmother's funeral," Henry admitted. "A fluorescent green toad with pink spots. By my own brother, no less. He always had a nasty temper, one of the reasons why I chose work assignments that took me abroad." He shuddered a little. "It took a week for the spots to fade, even after I was changed back into human form, which was less disturbing than the urge to snap at passing flies--which also took a week to fade."

Blaise nodded sympathetically; as a Slytherin, he'd been witness to a number of nasty hexes cast by his housemates, although he'd been fortunate in that he had managed to avoid being one of their victims. Probably the fact that he had been Theodore's roommate had protected him somewhat, because Theodore had been part of Draco's in-crowd, but he had also worked hard to keep a low profile and avoid attracting attention to himself.

Henry was a friendly and easy-going sort, and Blaise had the opportunity to chat with him several more times before his last week at the museum was up. They were having lunch together in the cafeteria one day when the topic of conversation turned towards Henry's last project, a study of some ancient Egyptian artifacts.

"They have a very different system of magic from ours," Henry explained, then sighed wistfully. "I was hoping to write a paper on it...maybe someday I'll get the chance to go back to Egypt and finish my research."

"I don't understand," Blaise said. "If your research wasn't finished, why did you leave? Was the job opportunity here too good to pass up?"

"Well, it is a very interesting and unique assignment I've been given," Henry replied. "I've been called in to examine some artifacts from an ongoing archaeological dig in Ireland..."

"Oh!" Blaise exclaimed in surprise. "My...um...friend is working on that dig. He's an apprentice to Master Tremayne, who has been translating the runes that they find."

Henry smiled knowingly, although not unkindly, so he must have heard the gossip about Blaise and Theo. "Ah yes, Professor Snape's son," was all he said, but Blaise still blushed a little. "However," Henry continued, "the Irish artifacts might not have been enough to lure me back from Egypt, except that the head of my family ordered me to take the job." A hint of ironic and slightly bitter humor entered his voice. "And I am too much of a good little pureblood to disobey."

"Why did your family want you to take the job?" Blaise asked hesitantly, since it seemed to be a touchy subject.

"It's the news that Erika Dietrich has been appointed as the new heir of the Dietrich family," Henry sighed. "Every pureblood family with a spare son will be parading them before the Dietrich family as potential husbands for the new heir, or should I say, heiress?"

"Erika?" Blaise asked, staring at him in shock. "You want to marry Erika?"

"Well, not really," Henry said morosely. "It's nothing personal against the young lady, of course, but to be honest, I prefer my life as a bachelor scholar. And if I marry Miss Dietrich, I'll be expected to stay home in England and help her run the family estate, and I won't be able to travel around the world to conduct my research as I'm used to doing." 

He sighed again. "However, as the second son of a second son, I would never be able to inherit an estate on my own, so it's a good opportunity to advance myself, even if I have to marry into my wife's family. Or at least, that's what my father and my uncle keep telling me. If my brother wasn't already married, no doubt they'd be pushing him off on Miss Dietrich, too. My cousin Miles, of course, is the Bletchley heir, so they don't want him taking on the Dietrich name."

"Not to mention that he's already engaged to Millicent Bulstrode," Blaise said.

"Oh, they wouldn't hesitate to pressure him to break off the engagement if they thought that he could make a better alliance with another family," Henry said cynically. "But as I'm the spare son with no other prospects, they've decided that I'll do well enough."

"No offense," Blaise said, "but I don't think that you're going to be very successful in courting Erika with that attitude." Then he smiled slyly and asked, "Or is that the idea?"

Henry grinned. "I'm hoping that Miss Dietrich will pick some other lucky fellow for her bridegroom, and then I can go back to my research in Egypt. In the meantime, my job here isn't really so bad; I've heard that they've found some interesting artifacts at your friend's dig. They should be arriving soon, after the Aurors finish their inspection. Er...by the way, do you know Miss Dietrich? I noticed that you mentioned her by name. I hope that I haven't offended you if she's a friend of yours..."

"Oh, not at all," Blaise reassured him. "I don't really know her very well, but she's a cousin of my friend Theodore. She seems nice enough; she stood by her brother even after he got turned into a werewolf. No one else in the Dietrich family has spoken to Aric since that day."

Henry nodded sympathetically. "I can imagine, poor fellow. I'm sure that my name would be burned off the family tapestry if that ever happened to me."

"I do admire her for that," Blaise said. "And she's very pretty. But Theo says that she's a bit...ah...strong-willed. She's not your typical pureblood girl who will defer to her husband on everything. If those potential bridegrooms think that they can just marry her and take over the Dietrich estate, they're in for a very big disappointment."

"She sounds like a very formidable young woman," Henry said. "Which she will need to be in order to run the estate, I'm sure, but I admit that I find the prospect a bit daunting." Then he smiled and said, "Well, never mind. Despite my family's hopes, I'm sure that she'll find a suitor who is much younger and handsomer than I, and much more capable of helping her run the estate. She won't want some boring scholar who's nearly old enough to be her father."

Blaise decided not to tell him that his lack of ambition would probably make him a more attractive marriage candidate in Erika's eyes than youth or good looks. From what he'd heard from Theo and Aric, Erika wouldn't want an ambitious husband who might try to wrest control of the estate from her, and most of the young pureblood men her age who would be courting her were quite ambitious. She might well prefer a husband who would spend all of his time on scholarly pursuits and not challenge her authority as head of the Dietrich family. But since Henry seemed so happily convinced that he had no chance of becoming Erika's husband, Blaise decided not to burst his bubble.

*** 

"Very interesting," Master Tremayne said as he examined the latest artifact that the team had dug up. It was a stone medallion about the size of a man's palm, probably meant to be worn like a necklace, as there was a small hole drilled through the top of it, although the leather cord that had been strung through it had mostly rotted away. The medallion had been engraved with a depiction of what appeared to be the different phases of the moon, and there were a number of mysterious runes etched along the edges of the medallion, below the moon engravings.

However, a small section of the medallion had been chipped off, probably broken in whatever calamity had caused the wizard's tower to fall--possibly an arcane duel, although Theodore shuddered to think how much magical power would have to be expended to bring down a tower of this size. If it had been a duel, the wizards involved must have possessed power near or equal to that of the Dark Lord. Theodore gave silent thanks to Merlin that the duelists were long dead by now, and turned his attention back to the medallion.

"This looks like the rune for 'wolf,'" Theodore said, pointing to a rune on the medallion. "And this one means 'moon'. I don't recognize the others, though."

"Yes," Tremayne said, frowning. "I'm certain that this wizard was using some sort of code, probably to prevent others from deciphering his spells. The runes are similar to the system that we're familiar with, but different enough that one can't cast spells in his books or operate the artifacts without the key to the code."

"Can you break the code?" Theodore asked.

Tremayne shrugged. "With enough time. It could take months, or it could take decades. In any case, make a sketch of the medallion, Mr. Snape. It's being sent to the museum for safekeeping, so we'll have to work from our notes."

"Yes, sir," Theodore said, and obediently began copying the runes and engravings onto a sheet of parchment. "Do you think that it might have something to do with lycanthropy? Maybe something to control the monthly transformation, the way that the Wolfsbane Potion does?"

"A reasonable guess, considering the wolf rune and the moon phases," Tremayne said, still frowning at the medallion. "But if it were some sort of device to suppress or lessen the severity of the transformation, I would expect to see only the full moon on the medallion, since that is time of month when a werewolf transforms. As you can see, it shows all the phases of the moon from crescent to full. I suspect that this portion here, which has broken off, would show the new moon."

"Maybe the werewolf had to wear it for the entire month for it to work," Theodore suggested.

"Possibly, but right now, that is pure speculation," Tremayne said. "If we can decipher the code, we should be able to learn more about the artifact."

"It's a pity that we can't hold onto it longer, then," Theodore said.

"Well, it has a slight aura of Dark Magic about it," Tremayne told him. "So the powers that be feel it would be safer under lock and key at the museum. And the museum has brought in a specialist in ancient artifacts who will attempt to learn more about the powers of the medallion and the other artifacts that have been unearthed."

"Oh, that's good," Theodore said. "It would be wonderful if the medallion had some sort of magic that can help werewolves."

Tremayne smiled, looking amused. "Ah yes, your father's...companion...is a werewolf."

Theodore grinned, unoffended. "Yes, and so is my cousin Aric, and my former teacher, Master Diggory."

"Well, I wouldn't hope for too much, Mr. Snape," Tremayne said. "Dark items are rarely beneficial, and besides, it's probably too damaged to function."

"Maybe we can still learn something useful from it, even if the magic no longer works," Theodore said philosophically. "If nothing else, it might make an interesting footnote in Professor Lupin's book." Tremayne raised his eyebrows questioningly, and Theodore explained, "His last letter said that he's thinking of writing a textbook on lycanthropy, one to replace the current texts that are full of lies and inaccuracies."

"Well, he's an expert in the field, I suppose," Tremayne said dryly, and Theodore laughed. He quickly resumed copying the runes, since Tremayne had little patience for idle chatter, but he made a mental note to write to Remus about the medallion.

*** 

Blaise took the Floo to Hogwarts on the first day of school, arriving in the morning, well ahead of his sister and the other students who would be traveling by train. The teachers, he had been informed, came in early to get settled in, prepare for the students' arrival, and to attend the obligatory start-of-term staff meeting. The Headmaster himself greeted Blaise when he arrived at the school, and showed him to his new quarters.

He would be living at the school now, as most of the other teachers did, and looked around the room, feeling a little awestruck. It wasn't actually "a" room, though, but a small suite of rooms: a drawing room with a desk, a worn but comfortable-looking couch and armchair, and a fireplace with a neat stack of logs already laid in it; a bedroom; and a bathroom. It was quite luxurious compared to his room at home or his old dorm room. Although he wistfully thought that he preferred the dorm room, if only because Theo had shared it with him. Still, if he couldn't be with Theo, this was a very nice place to live. And Theo would be able to visit him from time to time, and they would have more privacy here than in the dorm.

"I'll leave you to unpack and get settled in, then," Dumbledore said, smiling at Blaise's reaction to his new quarters. "The meeting will begin in half an hour in the staff room."

"Yes, sir," Blaise said.

"No need to be so formal, Blaise," Dumbledore chided gently. "Please call me 'Albus'."

"Uh...yes, sir," Blaise replied awkwardly, and Dumbledore left, chuckling to himself. Blaise thought to himself that it would be a very long time before he felt comfortable addressing the Headmaster by his first name.

Blaise went down to the staff room dressed in a set of new robes, a gift from his grandfather, who had pointed out with Slytherin cynicism and practicality that the students would not respect him if he turned up in his usual shabby old or secondhand robes. The robes were cut in a conservative, traditional style and dyed a plain, sober black, which was supposed to give him the properly serious look that a teacher was expected to have, but Blaise felt rather like a fraud or a child play-acting as he took a seat among his former Professors. He wasn't sure if he would ever be able to think of them as colleagues rather than as his teachers.

Lupin, who was sitting next to him, gave him a wink and friendly smile. "Relax, Blaise, no one's going to give you detention."

Blaise laughed, releasing a little nervous tension, and grinned at Lupin sheepishly. "I do feel that way, though. It's a bit scary, being in the presence of so many teachers at once. It makes me feel guilty, somehow, even though I haven't done anything wrong."

Lupin chuckled and shook his head. "Blaise, I don't think that you've ever gotten detention during your entire time at Hogwarts."

"Well...no, I haven't," Blaise admitted. As a member of a low-ranking pureblood family that had been in disfavor with the suspected Death Eater families, he had done his best to avoid attracting attention--good or bad--to himself, almost to the point of becoming invisible. He had never warranted special praise from his teachers, but neither had he ever received a reprimand or detention from them, either.

"Even if you're nervous, don't let the students see it, Zabini," Snape said in a cool, curt voice. "You'll never be able to gain their respect, otherwise." 

"Yes, sir," Blaise said, a little startled by the unexpected advice from Snape, which was welcome despite the curt manner in which it had been delivered. But of course Snape would know what it was like to be a young teacher nervous about starting a new job. He had been only a few years older than Blaise when he had first started teaching at Hogwarts, which meant that he had been working among his former Professors and teaching students who remembered him as a fellow student rather than a teacher. He was trying to work up the nerve to ask Snape for more advice when the Headmaster walked in and began the staff meeting.

"First of all," Dumbledore said with a warm smile, "I'd like to welcome our new staff members: Professor Tsubasa and Master Zabini." There was a polite smattering of applause, and the new Professor bowed his head graciously. He was extraordinarily handsome--almost pretty, in fact, with a long tail of silky black hair that any girl would envy, but what Blaise envied was his air of serenity and composure. Despite starting a new job in a foreign country, Professor Tsubasa did not look the slightest bit nervous. 

Dumbledore passed out copies of the class schedules to the teachers. "Minerva and Tsubasa will trade off on lessons, teaching on alternate days."

"Won't that be confusing for the students, Albus?" Sprout asked, frowning slightly. "To have two teachers giving different and perhaps contradictory instructions on the same subject?"

"Not at all," Dumbledore said cheerfully. "I think it will be very educational for the students to get two different perspectives on the subject."

"I will not be contradicting Professor McGonagall's lessons," Tsubasa said pleasantly. "Rather, let us say that I will be supplementing them and providing, as the Headmaster says, a different perspective. For example, the fact that wizards in Asia don't always use wands, although they usually do use some sort of similar object to focus their magical powers."

"My, that is rather radical!" Flitwick exclaimed. "Not using wands!"

"I'm not by any means suggesting that the students should throw away their wands," Tsubasa assured him. "They should be using the focus object which is most familiar and comfortable to them, which is in this case, a wand. But perhaps it would be useful for them to know that the focus object does not always have to be a wand."

Blaise said timidly, "I remember that Professor Chizuru could work wandless magic," and Tsubasa smiled at him.

Sprout still looked a bit doubtful, but McGonagall said, "I have no objection to it, Pomona. I have spoken with Professor Tsubasa and reviewed his transcripts from Salem, and I have every confidence in his abilities."

Sprout nodded, keeping whatever doubts she might still have to herself, and Dumbledore continued, "And Tsubasa has kindly agreed to assist Lukas with his Physical Defense classes. He'll assist in about half of the lessons, and take over completely when Lukas takes some time off to spend with his wife when their baby is due." A wide, proud, and slightly silly grin spread across Diggory's face; the other teachers smiled at him indulgently. Even Snape looked amused.

"As for Blaise's duties," Dumbledore said, "each History of Magic class will be split into two sessions. Professor Binns will lecture for the first portion of the class, and Blaise will take over for the second portion, reviewing the material with the students and giving what assignments he sees fit."

Blaise just nodded, and Dumbledore moved onto the next item on the agenda. He decided that maybe it would be better to ask the Headmaster for permission to take his classes on field trips later, in private. That way the other teachers wouldn't have an opportunity to object; from their reaction to Tsubasa, Blaise got the impression that most of them didn't care for drastic changes to the curriculum. A field trip didn't seem that drastic a change to Blaise, but most of the faculty had been at been at Hogwarts since before he had been born and were very set in their ways, and he knew that at least a few of them were bound to object on the grounds that "we've never done it before, so why start now?"

There was a little more discussion on what seemed to be routine staff business, such as Filch asking for the authority to inflict harsher punishments on misbehaving students, which was denied by Dumbledore. The other teachers looked bored, as if it were a frequent occurrence.

"I don't think we need to resort to whips and chains just yet, Argus," Dumbledore said cheerfully, and Filch sighed, looking disgruntled but not surprised. "You may feel free to assign them to scrubbing any part of the castle that needs cleaning, however."

"That won't be enough to keep the Gryffindors out of trouble," Filch grumbled.

"Whips and chains do sound rather appealing, at least when applied to Gryffindors," Snape muttered under his breath.

"Why Severus," Lupin whispered sweetly into Snape's ear, "I had no idea that you were into that sort of thing! It sounds a little kinky, but if you really want to try it..."

"Lupin!" Snape hissed, glaring at Lupin murderously, his pale, sallow face turning bright red. Blaise did his best "I'm invisible" act, trying to keep the expression on his face bland and indifferent, as if he hadn't heard any of that exchange. Snape shot a suspicious look his way, but Blaise pretended to be absorbed in taking notes on what the Headmaster was saying, and Snape turned back to glare at Lupin again as the werewolf smiled at him innocently.

The meeting was wrapped up a short time after that. Hagrid and McGonagall had to prepare for the arrival of the first years, since Hagrid was responsible for conducting them to the castle and McGonagall was in charge of the Sorting ceremony, but all the other teachers were free until it was time for dinner in the Great Hall.

Snape seemed to have calmed down by them, so Blaise took the risk of approaching him as he left, and asked hesitantly, "Could I speak to you for a moment, sir?" Snape paused and nodded, not looking especially friendly, but not angry either. That was about as good as it was going to get with Professor Snape, so Blaise continued, "I am a little nervous about teaching, especially the seventh-years, who are almost the same age that I am. Since you were only a few years older than me when you started teaching, I just wondered if you had any words of advice for me, Professor?"

"As I said earlier, don't let them see that you're nervous," Snape instructed. "The Slytherins especially can scent any trace of fear, as I'm sure you already know. And don't let them call you by your first name; make them address you by your proper title, the same as the other teachers. If you're too familiar with them, it will be difficult to gain their respect." 

He nodded at Lupin. "For example, Lupin was too soft on the students when he first started teaching here. He didn't crack down on Malfoy when he made his insulting little comments, and as a result, the Slytherins felt free to treat him with disrespect." Snape added grudgingly, "Although he did become more strict with the students when he returned to Hogwarts two years ago, but it's much better to gain the students' respect from the beginning than to try to regain it later."

"And if they do disrespect me?" Blaise asked.

"Punish them immediately, of course," Snape said impatiently. "You're a teacher now; you have the authority to deduct points and give detention. "

"Yes, that's true," Blaise agreed, relaxing slightly. He supposed that if he needed to keep the students in line, he could use Snape as a role model, although he had a long way to go before he could be anywhere near as intimidating as the Potions Master.

"Don't worry, Blaise," Lupin laughed, throwing an arm around his shoulders. "Everything will be fine."

*** 

Teaching the younger students went pretty smoothly, since most of them didn't know him very well, and the first-years didn't know him at all, so to them he was merely another teacher. Except, of course, for his second-year Gryffindor class. Things started off well enough; they got into a spirited discussion about the Goblin Wars, and the students seemed delighted to have a living teacher instead of the ghostly Professor Binns. However, Allegra kept calling him "Blaise" instead of his proper title.

"You know that you're supposed to call me 'Master Zabini' in class, Allegra," Blaise scolded gently after the third offense, while the other students giggled. 

"But I feel so silly calling you that," Allegra complained. "You're my brother, after all."

Blaise was in a bit of a dilemma here; his sister, who was fearless to the point of foolishness, and more importantly, had known him all her life, was not likely to be intimidated by him--not even if he threatened her with detention. And if her classmates could see that he had no authority over her, he was likely to lose his authority over them, too. He thought for a moment, then decided to try a slightly different tactic.

"Here I am your teacher, not your brother," he said sternly, and Allegra pouted a little. "Would you ever dare to call Professor McGonagall 'Minerva'? Or Professor Snape 'Severus'?" The students giggled nervously at the mention of Snape's name. 

"But you were just a student like us a few months ago," Kenneth Sloper pointed out, in a tone of voice that Professor Snape would probably have called "cheeky". He and his older brother Jack were among the students who had viewed all Slytherins as potential Death Eaters. They had been proven wrong, and were somewhat humbled by it, but a bit of House rivalry and antipathy still lingered.

"I cannot teach you if you do not treat me with the respect due a teacher," Blaise said quietly, then shrugged indifferently and made a show of gathering up his books and papers. "It's too bad," he sighed. "I had been looking forward to teaching you, and perhaps taking the class on a field trip to the museum."

"Field trip?" several students asked eagerly.

"But I'm sure that you won't mind having Professor Binns return to being your full-time teacher," Blaise said, heading for the door. "I'll inform the Headmaster of the change in schedule. Good day."

The students suddenly looked frantic at the thought of being stuck listening to Professor Binns's droning lectures on a full-time basis. 

"Hey, wait a minute!" Kenneth cried.

"Blaise, wait!" Allegra shouted.

Blaise ignored them both, and had just placed his hand on the doorknob when Allegra said meekly, "Please wait, Master Zabini." He paused, then turned to face the class.

One of the other Gryffindor boys elbowed Kenneth in the side, and he said just as meekly, "We want you to teach us, Master Zabini."

"Yes, this is the first time that I haven't felt like falling asleep in History class," Chloe Sinclair said earnestly, and the class burst into laughter.

Blaise smiled and returned to the head of the classroom. Allegra raised her hand, and he said, "Yes, Miss Zabini?"

Allegra grinned at being called "Miss," and asked, "So when do we get to go on the field trip?"

"After I ask the Headmaster for permission, and after you've all proven to me that you can behave," Blaise replied firmly. There were a few mutters of disappointment, but they quickly died away, and the class was attentive and respectful for the rest of the period.

*** 

For most of his classes, the threat of sleep-inducing boredom was enough to keep them in line. He had expected the most trouble to come from his own House, but Slytherins were used to bowing to those in authority. They tested him with a few insolent remarks to see how much he would tolerate, and once he had demonstrated that he held authority over them by taking away a few points and making veiled threats as to how Professor Snape would be disappointed if they lost the House Cup this year, they regarded him with respect and were almost downright docile.

The seventh-year Slytherins were the ones who were most familiar with him and closest to him in age, and they did give him a little bit of trouble. Dylan and Damien were two of his best friends, and although they teased him about his new title in private, they obediently called him "Master" in class, although with a grin and a wink in Damien's case. But a few of the others complained about having to address him as "Master Zabini" and accused him of putting on airs.

"You're just a year older than us, after all," a boy named Harper complained. He regarded Blaise with a superior and slightly disdainful look that said without words that he was well aware of the difference in social status between them. The Harpers were a wealthy pureblood family--although not as wealthy as the Snapes or Malfoys--while Blaise's family ran a junk shop and just barely managed to stay above the poverty line.

"That may be so, Mr. Harper," Blaise said, doing his best to imitate Snape's cold glare. "But nevertheless, I am your teacher, and your grades are dependent on me. I understand that you're applying for a Ministry position when you graduate, which means that you'll need to get high grades on your N.E.W.T.s. Of course, some students are capable of passing their N.E.W.T.s without any assistance." He glanced at Dylan, who smiled modestly. "But judging by your past History of Magic grades, I'd say that you need all the help you can get."

Harper stared at him, a look of consternation on his face, as he realized that antagonizing his new teacher might not have been such a smart move after all, and Brad Doherty leaned over from the seat behind and thumped him on the head with a History textbook.

"Ow!"

"You stupid git! Do you really want to pass up the chance to have a teacher who's actually alive instead of a ghost who practically talks you to death in class?"

Harper rubbed the back of his head and said, a bit sullenly, "I beg your pardon, Master Zabini."

Blaise let the sullenness pass without comment, and merely nodded and continued the lesson. The boy had apologized, however grudgingly, and he saw no need to rub it in further. Purebloods were touchy about their pride, and there was no sense in making an enemy, particularly out of a prominent Slytherin family.

Yvonne Deveraux slumped forward in her seat, resting her elbows on her desk and propping her chin up in her hands. "I don't really see the point of taking History lessons at all," she sighed in a bored tone, then added after a brief pause, "with all due respect, Master Zabini. Who cares about things that happened hundreds of years ago?"

"Well, whether you like it or not, you want to get a good grade on your N.E.W.T., don't you?" Brad pointed out practically.

"I don't really care," Yvonne replied indifferently. "I'm not going to work at the Ministry, or anywhere else, most likely. My parents will arrange a marriage for me in a year or two, and I don't need to be an expert in History to have children and look after the house."

Yvonne's grades had been uniformly mediocre throughout the six years she had spent at Hogwarts, but Blaise didn't really think that she was stupid. It was more, as she said, that she didn't see the need to exert herself at things that would not prove useful to her in the future, and all that was required of a pureblood wife was that she be a good hostess and bear children to her husband. Which was probably why she spent more of her time flirting and fussing over cosmetics and clothing than studying. 

For the first time, it occurred to Blaise that although she came from a much wealthier and higher-ranking family than him, her options were much more limited. He had the freedom to work at whatever profession he chose, and of course he had Theo, while Yvonne would have to marry whatever man her parents chose for her or be disowned. She didn't seem to mourn her fate, but still, Blaise felt a little sorry for her.

"History is important, and not just in regard to your N.E.W.T.s," Blaise said quietly. "The present is affected by what happened in the past." 

"What do you mean?" Yvonne asked, a hint of curiosity beginning to animate her features.

"Why did the Death Eaters come into existence?" Blaise countered, responding to her question with another question instead of replying directly.

"Well, because You-Know-Who formed them, of course," Yvonne said, frowning.

"Yes, but why did he form them?" Blaise asked patiently.

The class began to look puzzled and intrigued, and after thinking for a moment, Yvonne hesitantly replied, "Well, to hunt down Muggles and Mudbl--I mean, Muggle-borns."

Blaise smiled a little at that automatic correction--something that was the result of the Slytherins' fondness for Lupin, who never tolerated pejorative terms like "Mudblood" in his classes. It wasn't so much that they were afraid of receiving detention or being reprimanded, but more that they couldn't bear the look of disappointment in Lupin's eyes when they said things like that.

"But why did he want to kill them?" Blaise asked.

"Because he hated them, of course," Harper said impatiently.

"But why did he hate them?" Blaise persisted. "And why did so many of the purebloods agree with him?"

"Because Muggles are...Muggles," Harper replied, looking confused. He exchanged glances with some of his classmates, who shrugged and looked just as confused as he did. 

"Salazar Slytherin said that the Muggle-born weren't worthy of being taught at Hogwarts," Damien ventured. "Maybe he thought that their magic wouldn't be as strong as a pureblood's."

"Well, Hermione obviously proves that theory wrong," Dylan said with a smile. "Of course, Salazar didn't know Hermione personally. Maybe he was afraid that if we intermarried with Muggles, too many Squib children would be born."

"But there aren't a lot of Squibs, even in families with Muggle blood," Yvonne said thoughtfully.

Serafina, who had been silent throughout the discussion so far, finally raised her hand, and Blaise called on her.

"Yes, Miss Avery?"

"It was the Muggles who drove all the wizards into hiding," Serafina said calmly, but with a touch of impatience, as if the answer should have been obvious. "They hunted down witches and wizards and burned them at the stake. That's why the wizarding world has to be kept secret from the Muggles, because they outnumber us enough to be a threat even though they don't have magic. Professor Lupin says that people hate what they fear, and when you get right down to it, we fear the Muggles."

"And that's why the Death Eaters--why most of the purebloods--hate Muggles so much!" Brad exclaimed excitedly. "Because they're a threat!"

"And because they don't want to admit that they're afraid of people who don't have magic," Yvonne chimed in, looking pleased with herself. Blaise smiled again; yes, she definitely wasn't stupid, just unmotivated up until now.

Even Harper began to get caught up in all the enthusiasm. "So You-Know-Who wanted to eliminate the threat that the Muggles posed, and to prove that he was more powerful than them."

"Very good!" Blaise approvingly. "Ten points to Miss Avery, and five each to the rest of you."

"So, History of Magic isn't so boring after all, huh, Yvonne?" Damien asked, grinning.

"Well, I guess maybe it is important to know about the past," Yvonne conceded.

"And you still might want to study for your N.E.W.T.s, Miss Deveraux," Blaise said. "It would give you options, in case you want to work after you're married, or if you decide to delay getting married."

"Hmm," was all Yvonne said, but she seemed to be considering his words.

"Your first assignment will be to write a report on an event or person in the past who has had a significant effect on the modern-day wizarding world," Blaise said. The class groaned, but it was only a token protest, and they eagerly began discussing report topics.

"I'm doing the Goblin Wars!" Damien declared.

Yvonne wrinkled her nose in distaste. "You boys always love blood and gore."

"Hey, it's an example of the distrust between the human and nonhuman races, which exists to this day," Damien defended himself with a virtuous air.

"Well, I shall do my report on the Founders," Yvonne decided. "Hogwarts wouldn't exist without them, after all."

"I'll do the Salem Witch Trials," Serafina said. "That ties in with what we were just discussing."

"I'll do my report on the inventor of Quidditch!" Brad said, and the others turned to stare at him. 

"Well, Quidditch is very popular, but is it really historically significant?" Dylan asked.

"Of course it is!" Brad said indignantly. "Do you know how many political deals have been negotiated at Quidditch games? Why else do you think that there's a special box reserved for Ministry officials at every important match?"

"It sounds like you all have very good ideas," Blaise laughed. "I'll dismiss you early so that you can go to the library and start your research."

Dylan and Damien lingered behind after the others had left to slap Blaise on the back and congratulate him. "Looks like you're handling yourself pretty well, 'Professor'!" Damien said, winking at him.

"I'm not a Professor yet," Blaise reminded him.

"But you will be soon, I'm sure of it!" Dylan said.

"Be off with you, then, before I deduct points from you," Blaise said, setting his face in an expression of exaggerated sternness.

"That's pretty good!" Damien said. "McGonagall, right?" Then he ran laughing out of the room before Blaise could threaten him with detention. Dylan followed, smiling and shaking his head.

*** 

That night at dinner, Snape asked, "Did the students give you any problems, Zabini?"

Blaise was pleased to be able to reply honestly, "None that I couldn't handle, sir." Snape said nothing, but raised his eyebrows and looked mildly impressed.

"I told you that I had every confidence in Mister...excuse me, Master Zabini, Severus," Dumbledore said cheerfully.

"Hmph!" Snape snorted, but didn't argue with the Headmaster.

After dinner, Blaise sat in front of the fireplace in his quarters, going over tomorrow's lesson plans and feeling a bit lonely. He was used to living at home with his family, or in the dorm with the other Slytherins, so his quarters, while luxurious, were too large and empty for his comfort with only himself in them.

A scratching at the window distracted him and immediately cheered him up when he saw that it was Theodore's owl, Aristotle--a birthday gift from Lady Selima. She had bought Theo the owl so that it could carry messages for him to his friends and family, and she had chosen a great horned owl because it was large and strong, able to travel long distances and carry care packages from home back to its master. 

Blaise opened the window and let Aristotle in, and the owl dropped a letter into his hand, then settled itself comfortably on his desk, seeming to be in no hurry to leave. Blaise chuckled and gently scratched the owl's chest, then opened a box of Owl Treats and fed one to Aristotle. He was very friendly and affectionate, unlike the dignified Snape family owl, Socrates--although even Socrates behaved like a lapdog around Lupin, much to Lady Selima's disgust.

"Lady Selima would say that Theo and I spoil you," Blaise said, giving the owl one last scratch. "But I won't tell her if you don't." Then he opened the letter, which read:

*** 

Dear Blaise,

I really miss you, but I'm enjoying my work here in Ireland. The team has found a lot of fascinating artifacts, although it's a bit frustrating because we haven't been able to figure out what most of them do. There's one medallion that probably has something to do with lycanthropy, possibly a device to control the transformation, but we can't really be sure until we finish translating the runes on it, and they seem to be written in some sort of code. 

Remus and the other werewolves manage well enough with the Wolfsbane Potion, of course, but it would be nice if we could learn something from the medallion that would help them. Maybe your friend Henry Bletchley at the museum can figure it out; I hear that he's an expert on magical artifacts. I feel kind of sorry for him, the poor git, his family trying to marry him off to Erika, haha! She's not really so bad now, but she was a real terror when we were kids; even Aric was a little scared of her!

I hope things are going well for you and that your students aren't giving you too much trouble. If they get out of line, ask Father to threaten them a little for you! Things have been very busy, but I hope to be able to come home for a weekend soon, maybe in a couple of weeks. I can't wait to see you; I miss you so much! It reminds me of how long summer vacations used to seem, and how I used to count the days until school started and I could see you again.

As always, I love you.

Theo

*** 

Blaise smiled tenderly at the letter, then carefully folded it and slipped it back into the envelope and stored it away in an ebony box (scavenged from the junk shop) where he kept all of Theo's letters. Aristotle was still sitting placidly on the desk, eyeing the box of Owl Treats hopefully, so Blaise fed the owl another treat to keep him occupied, and began writing a reply, telling Theo about his first day of classes, and of course, how much he loved him.

*** 

Meanwhile, Aristotle had already delivered a letter to Snape and Lupin, which also mentioned the medallion that was being sent to the museum.

"Sounds quite intriguing," Lupin said. "Do you think it might yield some useful information about lycanthropy, Severus?"

Snape shrugged and said skeptically, "Perhaps, but I wouldn't hope for too much. For one thing, the artifact is damaged, which means that it probably no longer works, or at least, does not work properly. And for another, Theodore said that there was an aura of Dark Magic surrounding it."

"A slight aura," Lupin corrected him.

"And Dark Magic is rarely beneficial, although there are a few exceptions, such as the Blood Healing spell," Snape continued, ignoring the interruption. "But even then, it heals at the cost of draining another person of their blood. By definition, Dark Magic is magic that inflicts harm on its target. Even if this medallion has something to do with lycanthropy, it's much more likely to be something that will hurt a werewolf rather than help it."

Lupin sighed, looking a little disappointed. "Well, even if its intended purpose is harmful, we might still be able to learn something from it," he said hopefully. 

"True," Snape conceded. "Perhaps Bletchley will be able to figure out what it does, although it's very difficult to get anything useful out of a broken item. Still, he's supposed to be an expert in ancient artifacts, so he might have some success with it. And if Theodore and Tremayne manage to translate the runes, at least we'll know what it's supposed to do. I wonder if it might be some sort of control device?"

"To control the transformation, as Theodore believes?" Lupin asked.

"To control the werewolf," Snape replied dryly. "It is a Dark item, after all. Still, it's unlikely that the device would have been very effective even when it was still whole. After all, during the first war, Voldemort tried to come up with a way to enslave the werewolves, but was unsuccessful. And if the Dark Lord could not accomplish such a thing, I doubt that any other wizard could."

"I remember," Lupin said gravely. "You said that he attempted to use that Werewolf Potion formula in the book that Williamson stole to create an army of werewolf slaves, but it was ineffective."

Snape nodded. "It's just as well, as I suppose. Imagine how much more dangerous he would have been with a pack of werewolves at his command." 

Lupin shuddered. "And it would only have caused the wizarding world to hate and fear us even more."

"A few werewolves were inducted as Death Eaters during the first war," Snape said. "But they proved impossible to control during the full moon, and were as likely to attack their comrades as they were the enemy. And one of them, a man named Greyback, was impossible to control even as a human."

"Greyback," Lupin murmured, grimacing slightly. "I remember him; a very nasty sort."

"Vicious and sadistic," Snape agreed. "He enjoyed killing people as much as the Lestranges did, but he preferred to physically tear them apart with his own hands rather than use Forbidden Curses." Lupin shuddered again. "And of course, he delighted in killing and turning people during the full moon. Unlike most werewolves, he did not dread the full moon, but eagerly looked forward to it each month. But he didn't take well to orders, and had a tendency to go off on his own, even after being subjected to a Cruciatus Curse as punishment. Finally, he killed someone that Voldemort had deemed off-limits, a Ministry official that he had intended to recruit as a Death Eater, and the Dark Lord did away with him."

"It was a great relief to the Order," Lupin sighed.

"To me as well," Snape admitted. "Greyback always made the other Death Eaters uneasy, because we had the feeling that he could turn on us at any moment. Although I was a little disappointed when the Dark Lord gave up on his plan to create werewolf slaves, because it would have given me an excuse to work on the Wolfsbane Potion openly, instead of having to work in secret with Professor Kamiyama. But I suppose that it was all for the best."

"Yes," Lupin said. "You did manage to create the Wolfsbane Potion, even if you had to do it secretly, and Voldemort was never able to control the werewolves." Then he smiled at Snape mischievously, lightening the mood, and said flirtatiously, "Of course, this particular werewolf is already your slave, Professor Snape, without any need for potions or spells."

"Oh, really?" Snape purred in his deep, husky voice. "Then come here, werewolf, and prove your devotion to me." 

Lupin growled happily and flung himself into Snape's arms with such enthusiasm that he almost knocked the Potions Master over.

*** 

Ash frowned at his reflection in the mirror as he got dressed for work, with much more care than usual, because today he had a fencing lesson with Tsubasa after work. He had lots of nice new robes to wear now that he was working at the Ministry, but unfortunately, he didn't really get to show them off much in front of Tsubasa. At his first lesson a few weeks ago, Tsubasa had told him that he should wear comfortable clothing that he wouldn't mind getting sweaty and dirty, so he usually changed into old, faded robes or t-shirt and jeans after work before heading to Hogwarts.

But today Ash decided not to bother with that, and to just throw a nice robe on over his t-shirt and jeans. Even if people noticed that he was wearing Muggle clothing beneath the long robe, it wouldn't really matter because he was currently in favor with the Minister of Magic, and Arthur Weasley loved all things Muggle. 

He had been thrilled with the electric toothbrush that Hermione and Dylan had given him, and Ash had just helped him to set up his latest Muggle toy in his office: an espresso/cappuccino machine. Molly Weasley had banned it from her home after Arthur had tried to set it up himself and ended up spraying hot water and milk all over the kitchen, but Ash had got it working properly, and Arthur was even more pleased with him than ever. And of course there was the side benefit of being able to get a good cup of coffee from the Minister's office every morning.

After some thought, Ash donned a black t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans, fashionably faded and slightly frayed over the knees. They were not tight enough to be uncomfortable or inhibit movement, but fit snugly enough to show off the curve of his arse. He no longer had the scrawny, stick-thin figure he'd had as a half-starved runaway child; over the years, hard work and sufficient (if not always plentiful) food had filled out his body with flesh and muscle, although he was still more lean and sinewy than brawny and athletic-looking like Aric, or sleek and beautiful like the late, unlamented Lucius Malfoy.

Ash sighed as he brushed out his long, shoulder-length hair, wishing for just a touch of Malfoy-like sleekness; Lucius Malfoy had been an evil bastard, but a handsome one. He automatically pulled his hair forward to hide the scar running across the left side of his face, then scowled at his reflection and impatiently pushed his hair back. Who the hell was he trying to fool, anyway? 

The scar was impossible to hide completely, and trying to cover it up probably just drew more attention to it. He had been assured by numerous past lovers that he was handsome and that the scar even gave him a roguish, piratical charm. Ash would laugh and agree with them, playing at being vain, but whenever he looked in the mirror, deep in his heart, he still felt ugly...

"Making yourself pretty for your little bird?" a sleepy voice asked from the doorway. Ash snarled and hurled his hairbrush at the doorway; Kian yelped in pain as it bounced off his head.

"What was that for?" the young werewolf whined plaintively, rubbing his head.

"What are you doing here?" Ash retorted. "I thought you were at the mansion."

Kian yawned, rubbing bleary eyes. "Me and Kai were out late last night. Figured it would be better to crash here than to stumble in drunk in the middle of the night and wake up Lady Narcissa. She has a sharp tongue when she's angry, and Lukas is overprotective of his mate now that she's with cub. Merlin help anyone who disturbs his beloved's beauty rest."

"Oh, I don't care!" Ash growled. "Just mind your own business!"

Kian had to jump back hastily to avoid being hit as Ash slammed the door shut. "Well, somebody sure woke up on the wrong side of bed this morning," he muttered to the closed door.

*** 

Kian and his lover Kai stumbled into the charity clinic in Diagon Alley later that morning, both of them looking pale and slightly ill. Takeshi immediately recognized their symptoms and fetched two potion bottles without being asked. Werewolves rarely got sick, aside from the pain and nausea in the days leading up to the full moon. However, it was currently nowhere near the full moon, and even a werewolf was not immune to a hangover.

"Ah, thanks, Takeshi," Kian sighed after he gulped down the Hangover Potion. Kai nodded his thanks as he swallowed his own potion.

"I like a glass of wine or a cup of good ale as much as the next person, but it's not healthy to drink until you're sick, you know," Takeshi scolded them.

"We were celebrating," Kai protested.

"Celebrating what?"

"Oh, having jobs and not being outcasts anymore," Kai said, gesturing vaguely. "Living in a fine mansion and learning to play Quidditch."

"You've had a job and been living in the mansion since the beginning of summer," Takeshi said dryly. "Just how long do you intend to keep celebrating?"

Kai ignored the question and added virtuously, "And we never get drunk when we have to work the next day."

"Today's our day off," Kian chimed in. "We'd never let Master Isamu down by giving less than our best at work."

"Well, at least that cuts down on the number of nights you can go drinking," Takeshi sighed, then frowned thoughtfully. "Come to think of it, I haven't seen Ash come in for a Hangover Potion lately, either, although I've been away for most of the summer." His friend had a fondness for Firewhiskey, and usually turned up seeking relief from hangovers on a regular basis.

"Oh, he hasn't been going to the pubs with us," Kai snickered. "He spends all his time pining over his pretty bird. I think your cousin's been playing hard to get, Takeshi."

"Well, crane courtship rituals can be rather complicated," Takeshi said with a smile. "Although since Tsubasa spent most of his childhood living among the humans, and most of his adult life living with the tengu, he doesn't really worry much about adhering to formal rituals. But he is still a pureblooded crane, and my people do not give away their hearts lightly; the instinct to cleave unto a sole lifemate is in our blood. So you might tell Ash to look upon Tsubasa playing 'hard to get' as a positive sign. If all he wanted was a one night stand or a casual affair, he would just sleep with Ash and be done with it. And if he wasn't interested, he would find a way to turn down Ash politely. But if he hasn't outright rejected Ash, then it probably means that he's at least contemplating the possibility of a serious relationship. But he wouldn't just jump into something like that."

"I guess it is complicated, huh?" Kian sighed. "Well, I wish your cousin would make up his mind, Takeshi. Ash has been rather grumpy lately."

Aric came up behind Takeshi, slipping an arm around his waist and brushing his lips against Takeshi's neck; Takeshi leaned back against him, sighing. "Tell Ash he should be stubborn and persistent," Aric said with a wolfish grin, exposing his sharp canine teeth. "Tell him not to give up."

"Stubbornness does seem to be an inherent werewolf trait," Takeshi laughed, smiling at his lover fondly.

*** 

Laura was staring at the picture of her brother one morning, as she often did, frowning thoughtfully.

"Laura?" Rosie called from the doorway. "Hurry up, we'll be late for breakfast!"

"Oh, sorry," Laura said, hastily putting the photo away and hurrying to join Rosie.

"You're always staring at Ethan's picture," Rosie said with a smile. "I would have thought you'd have his face memorized by now."

"It's odd, but his face looks familiar somehow, even though I've never met him," Laura replied. "I was trying to figure out who he reminds me of."

"Probably yourself and your mother, silly," Rosie said. "He has your eyes, after all."

Laura didn't contradict her friend, but she thought that Rosie was wrong. It was true that Ethan had hazel eyes, like both Laura and her mother, but aside from that, he didn't look much like either of them, or Father, for that matter. Yet she had the strangest feeling that she had seen him somewhere before, although of course that was impossible.

The thought nagged at her persistently, like an itch that couldn't be scratched, but she tried to put it out of her mind for now, and changed the subject. In the Great Hall, most of the other Hufflepuff girls were talking about how "dreamy" Professor Tsubasa was. Even practical Rosie sighed and giggled along with the others. Laura privately thought that the Professor was very handsome, but a little too pretty for her taste. Her ideal type was someone who was strong and masculine, but also serious and kind--like Cedric Diggory, whom she'd had a crush on as a first-year. Not that she'd ever thought she'd had a chance with him, of course, but she had admired him, as nearly all the other Hufflepuff girls had. She was glad that Master Diggory was planning to name his baby after Cedric, because it made her feel like a part of Cedric would still live on.

But even though she didn't moon over Professor Tsubasa like the other girls, she did like him as a teacher; his lessons were always interesting. He had explained in one of his earlier lectures that wizards in other countries didn't always use a wand for what he called a "focus object," and that some of the non-human races didn't need a focus object at all. Today, one of the students asked him to explain more about the concept of wandless magic.

"If non-humans can work magic without a wand, doesn't that make them more powerful than the human wizards?" Kevin Whitby asked. "So why aren't the non-humans in charge of the wizarding world?"

"Numbers, for one thing," Tsubasa replied. "We are far outnumbered by human wizards, much the same way that Muggles outnumber wizards in general. For another, the type of magic that the non-human races can perform is generally very limited. The tanuki, for example, are masters of Illusion-type spells, but have no talent for combative magic. Therefore, they must use illusion and trickery to defend themselves, and will normally hide or flee rather than fight if threatened. My people, the crane folk, have the unique gift of Weaving magic and the ability to shapeshift at will. Some of us have a talent for Healing, and occasionally a Seer is born among us, but like the tanuki, we have little aptitude for combative magic. 

"Werewolves, of course, possess the ability to turn into wolves, but they have no control over the transformation. It is a natural balance of power, Mr. Whitby. The shapeshifters possess the ability to cast spells without wands, but only in one or two specialized fields of magic, while humans have access to a wide variety of spells, but are limited by the need to use a wand or other focus object. House-elves are able to perform a variety of wandless spells, but are limited by the bonds of servitude to their masters."

"Hmm," Kevin said thoughtfully. "So it's like nature's way of balancing things out, to keep one group from getting too powerful?"

"Exactly," Tsubasa said with an approving smile. "At least, that is what my people believe."

"Someone should tell that to Hermione Granger," joked another of Laura's classmates, a boy named Owen Cauldwell. He rolled his eyes and added, "She's determined to save the house-elves from their lives of slavery--whether they want to be saved or not."

"But she has a point," Laura said hesitantly. "The balance of power isn't really equal. Humans still have the most power in the wizarding world."

"Well, no system is perfect," Tsubasa admitted.

"And you use a wand," Kevin pointed out.

"Yes, I was educated in the human ways of magic at Salem," Tsubasa replied. "But my Weaving ability is rather weak; perhaps that is why I was able to learn human magic with such ease. Or possibly it's the other way around, and my ability to use Weaving magic was stunted by the fact that I was practicing human magic." He shrugged, looking unconcerned. "It is the former rather than the latter, I think, since my strongest talent is Transfiguration, and shapeshifting, after all, is a type of Transfiguration magic. But I suppose that it doesn't really matter, so long as I am content with myself the way I am."

"And are you content, Professor?" Laura asked, wondering if he really was content with his life, considering that he had left his home and traveled so far away to teach at a foreign school. Was it out of a sense of adventure or a desire to promote better international relations, or was it something more?

"Content enough, Miss Madley," Tsubasa said lightly, then smiled rather ironically and added, "Some of my kinfolk are perhaps not so content with me, but that is their problem, not mine. In any case, let us continue with today's lesson." He handed out to each student a wooden stick topped with a wooden propeller. "This is a traditional child's toy in Japan, a take-tonbo, or bamboo dragonfly. And this spell is what attracted the Headmaster's attention and led to him offering me a job here at Hogwarts." He took out his wand, tapped the toy with it, and cried, "Transformare Libelle!" 

The class applauded politely as the stick-toy turned into a real dragonfly and buzzed around the room a few times before returning to the teacher's desk and resuming its original form. They were impressed but not overawed, as they had seen McGonagall perform similar types of spells.

"Now you try it," Tsubasa said, and they discovered that it wasn't as easy as he made it look. Nothing happened when they waved their wands and shouted the incantation.

"Are we pronouncing it wrong?" Kevin asked, looking confused.

"Haven't you realized by now that the actual words are not really that important?" Tsubasa gently chided. "They only serve to channel and focus your power, in much the same way that your wand does. Then again, Western magic does place a great deal of emphasis on incantations, so perhaps it's not surprising that many wizards believe that the magic resides in the words themselves. But haven't you ever wondered how nonverbal spells are cast?"

"Uh...not really," Kevin confessed, looking a little embarrassed. "That's considered advanced magic; they don't start teaching nonverbal spells till sixth year, and we're only in fifth."

"I never really thought much about it," Laura added. "I mean, I know what a nonverbal spell is, but I just assumed that it worked because you recited the incantation silently in your mind."

"The words of the incantation do have importance," Tsubasa said with a smile. "But only the importance that we attach to them. The incantations used by Western mages are mostly based in Latin, including the one that I just taught you: 'Transformare' means 'to transform,' of course, and 'Libelle' means 'dragonfly'. But a wizard from my homeland might say, 'tonbo henshin!'--Japanese for 'dragonfly transform!' Or he might say nothing at all." He tapped the wooden toy with his wand again, this time without uttering the incantation, and it turned into a dragonfly once more.

"So...do you want us to practice nonverbal spells?" Owen asked doubtfully.

"No, Mr. Cauldwell," Tsubasa said kindly, to Owen's obvious relief. "I'm just reminding you that concentration and willpower are the keys to casting a successful spell. The incantation is there to help you concentrate and focus your power. Don't just mouth the words; as you recite the incantation, concentrate very hard on picturing the image of the dragonfly in your mind. Picture it down to the smallest detail--the color of its body and the shape of its wings. Transforming an inanimate object into a living creature is very difficult, but remember that the toy is made of wood, which was once living itself. Call to the life within the wood; call on it to awaken and reshape itself into the form you picture in your mind. Ready? Begin!"

Laura shut her eyes to help herself concentrate, building an image of a dragonfly in her head: bulbous eyes, a shiny blue-green body, and four fluttering transparent wings. She held her wand in one hand and clenched the take-tonbo in the other. Her fingers stroked the smooth wood, and she silently called on it to remember what it was like to be alive. "Transformare Libelle," she whispered. "Transformare Libelle. Transformare Libelle."

She still felt the wooden stick in her hand, so she thought that the spell had failed, but she heard startled gasps and laughter from her classmates, so she opened her eyes and saw to her astonishment that the wooden dragonfly was still wooden, but had begun sprouting leaves and twigs.

"That's not quite what I meant when I said to call to the life within the wood, but you seem to have been very successful in doing so," Tsubasa said with a grin. "Perhaps a little too much so; I think you have a talent for plant magic, Miss Madley."

"Herbology's my best subject, sir," Laura said, smiling sheepishly.

"So it would seem," Tsubasa said, still grinning. "Well, I'll award you five points, since you were halfway successful with your spell. You can try casting it again with my tonbo." He handed her the toy he had been using. "You should plant the other in Professor Sprout's gardens. It would be a shame to turn it back into a lifeless stick now that you've awakened it."

"Yes, sir," Laura said, blushing a little. She was a little embarrassed by the spectacular failure of the spell, but at the same time felt excited by how she'd been able to "awaken" the wooden stick. It wasn't something they had ever covered in Herbology, but surely this was useful magic for a future farmer and Herbologist to know.

Professor Sprout was just as surprised and delighted when Laura showed her the leafy stick. "You have a real talent for Herbology, my dear!" she said proudly. "I admit I had some reservations about Professor Tsubasa, but it seems that his methods are quite effective, even if somewhat unorthodox. I think that you're ready to learn some magic more advanced than what we're covering in class, Miss Madley. I know that you're busy getting ready for your O.W.L.s, but if you can spare the time, I'd like to give you special tutoring afterschool, say, twice a week?"

"Oh, I would love that, Professor Sprout!" Laura exclaimed.

"Meet me in Greenhouse One afterschool today then, dear. But for now, let's get your little friend planted."

*** 

Meanwhile, Harry, Tonks, and Kingsley had picked up the magical artifacts from the archaeological dig, and were screening them at the Ministry. "Nasty bloke, this wizard," Tonks observed cheerfully. Among the artifacts was a golden torc shaped like a snake, much like the one that Master Diggory often wore, except that this one had only one head. When the hapless victim donned the torc, the serpent came to life and bit him or her on the neck.

"See here?" Tonks pointed out. "There's a chamber in the snake's head to hold the poison; the fangs are tiny hollow needles. It's really quite clever." Harry nervously pulled his hands back out of reach of the snake's mouth, and Tonks laughed. "Don't worry, Harry, the poison chamber is empty."

There was another serpent-shaped torc that was enchanted to strangle its owner, and a sun-shaped plaque made of solid gold that was probably something like a magical burglar alarm; it would shoot forth a searing blast of flame if someone walked past it without uttering the proper command word to disarm it.

"It seems to be using the type of Dark Warding spells that Professor Lupin...that Remus told us about in DADA class," Harry said. "It's defensive rather than offensive, but it inflicts harm on someone if they try to get past it."

"Very good, Harry; five points to Gryffindor," Kingsley joked. "Actually, I'm not sure whether this wizard was a 'nasty bloke,' as Tonks said, or just extremely paranoid. Most of these items, while Dark, are defensive rather than offensive in nature." He held up a silver goblet that was enchanted to identify and neutralize poisons.

"Well, he could have been both," Harry pointed out. "Nasty and paranoid."

"Quite true," Kingsley agreed, and they continued sorting through the artifacts. Most of them would be locked in secure vaults at the Ministry, and the less dangerous ones, such as the goblet, would be sent on to the Museum of Wizarding History.

"What about this one?" Harry asked, holding up a chipped stone medallion. "It has a Dark aura, but it's faint, and Master Tremayne and Theodore aren't sure what it does, although they think it might be something to do with lycanthropy."

"It should be safe enough to send it on to the museum," Kingsley said dismissively. "Even if it is Dark, it doesn't seem to be functional. Broken items usually don't work, and even when they do, they rarely work properly or effectively."

"As Ron knows from experience," Harry said with a grin, and told them the story about how Ron had broken his wand in second year.

They took the artifacts deemed "safe" to the museum and handed them over to a Professor Henry Bletchley, whom Harry was surprised to discover was the cousin of the former Slytherin Keeper, Miles Bletchley. He seemed a good deal more pleasant than his cousin, who had once hit Alicia Spinnet with a curse during Harry's fifth year.

They were discussing the artifacts when Kingsley looked up and noticed someone hovering in the doorway. "What are you doing here?" he asked sharply, and Harry stared at him in surprise, because Kingsley was usually very good-natured. He turned to see who had gotten Kingsley so upset, and saw a woman standing in the doorway. He thought she was young, but it was difficult to tell how old she was or whether she was pretty or not, because her head was bowed, her long dark hair falling forward and obscuring her face. She looked vaguely familiar, although Harry couldn't recall where--or if--he had seen her before.

"The Director asked me to deliver some files to Professor Bletchley," she said quietly.

"Thank you, Imogen," Bletchley said hastily, rising to his feet to take the files from her. She nodded and left the room, head still bowed.

"Who was that?" Harry asked.

"Imogen Macnair," Kingsley replied, frowning as he gazed after the departing woman.

"Macnair?!" Harry exclaimed. "As in the Death Eater Macnair?"

"She's his daughter," Kingsley said. "Macnair has two children, Imogen and a twin brother, Warren. We couldn't prove that they had any connection to the Death Eaters, but I find it extremely unlikely that they had no knowledge of their father's activities, and I don't like that she was listening in on our conversation."

"You yourself deemed the artifacts not dangerous, Mr. Shacklebolt," Bletchley said coldly. "And even so, I assure you that they will be kept safely under lock and key here at the museum. Miss Macnair works here as a clerk, and she does sometimes stop by my office to deliver documents, so she wasn't necessarily spying on you."

"Is she a friend of yours?" Kingsley asked suspiciously.

"No, I barely know her," Bletchley replied. "She's much younger than I am, and I've been working abroad for most of the past two decades. I don't know her well enough to say whether she's trustworthy or not. But I do know what it's like to be viewed with suspicion and treated like a potential Death Eater just because I'm a Slytherin. I have met Walden Macnair, and I do agree that he's a very cruel and unpleasant man, but the Macnair children were too young to take part in the first war, and from what I understand, were living in Europe for most of the second, so it seems unlikely that they were Death Eaters themselves. 

"They may have shared their father's political views, but even if that's true, haven't they been punished enough? Their father is in prison, the family name has been disgraced, and Warren has been unable to find anyone willing to hire a Death Eater's son. Imogen was able to secure a clerical position here at the museum only because one of the curators was a friend of her late mother, and took pity on her friend's daughter. And it's a position that would normally be far beneath the status of a wealthy pureblood woman. So you may take pleasure in knowing that the Macnair family has been quite humbled and humiliated, Mr. Shacklebolt."

"Kingsley didn't mean it that way, I'm sure," Tonks said, giving her fellow Auror an anxious look.

"She caught me by surprise," Kingsley said stiffly. "I didn't know that Miss Macnair was working here."

Bletchley nodded curtly, and the three Aurors rather awkwardly said goodbye and returned to the Ministry. When they were back at the office, Harry asked, "Do you really think that she was spying on us, Kingsley? Do you think she wants to steal the artifacts?"

"I don't know, Harry," Kingsley sighed, rubbing his hand across his bald pate. "It startled me to see her, as I said, and I admit I may be somewhat biased. Her father personally hurt and killed many of my colleagues."

"And so did Thaddeus Nott, and Evan Rosier," Tonks reminded him. "But Theodore and Dylan aren't like their fathers."

"Yes, but they've proven themselves by fighting on our side during the final battle," Kingsley said. "And they have no reason to be loyal to the Death Eaters: Thaddeus tried to sacrifice his own son, and the Death Eaters killed Dylan's mother and tried to sacrifice his aunt. I have no idea where Imogen Macnair's loyalties lie. You would have a better idea of whether or not she might want to carry on her father's cause, Tonks. Didn't you go to school with her? In fact, I think she was still at Hogwarts while you were there, Harry. Didn't you ever meet her?"

"I don't know," Harry replied. "I thought she looked sort of familiar, but I didn't get a good look at her face. And I didn't spend much time around the older students, especially the Slytherins."

"She would have graduated at the end of your third year, Harry," Tonks told him. "You wouldn't have had any classes together, so there's no reason for you to have met her, although you might have seen her sitting at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall during meals; perhaps that's why she looks familiar to you. I was a few years ahead of Imogen and Warren." 

She winked at Harry. "That was before your time, of course. Can't say that I liked them; they were typical Slytherins, proud and snooty, and of course they looked down on a half-blood like me. Our paths didn't cross much, though, because of the age difference. I thought that they were arrogant and obnoxious, but I can't say if they were actually evil. Warren hexed a few kids he got into arguments with, but minor spells and nothing dangerous--certainly no Forbidden Curses. It seemed like typical kid stuff at the time; a lot of my Gryffindor friends got into worse mischief than the Macnairs. 

"In fact, Imogen never really got into trouble at all, that I know of. I mean, she said some insulting things to those of us with less than pure blood, but it never went beyond a few snide remarks. I never saw her cast any hexes or do anything to get detention. Severus didn't believe that they were actively involved with the Death Eaters; as far as he knew, they never took the Dark Mark, and he never saw them at any meetings. And they were living abroad for the past few years, as Professor Bletchley pointed out, so they were never charged with any crimes."

"They were supposedly living abroad," Kingsley said, "but who's to say that they never returned home secretly from time to time? Or that they weren't carrying out some mission for the Death Eaters in Europe?"

"I think that's unlikely," Tonks replied. "Severus said that Voldemort was concentrating his efforts on killing Harry and gaining control of England before trying to take the war abroad."

"You're probably right, and I'm probably just being paranoid," Kingsley conceded. "But still, I think I'd like to talk to Snape about this again."

So they sent a message to Hogwarts, and Snape stopped by the Ministry later that afternoon, accompanied by Lupin. Kingsley hadn't specifically asked for Lupin to come with Snape, but Harry wasn't really surprised by his presence; ever since they had gone public with their relationship, the two of them were rarely seen apart, outside of their classrooms. And Harry suspected that if it had been possible, Lupin would have conducted a joint Potions/DADA class with Snape (although Snape would probably not have been so willing, since he complained loudly whenever Lupin embarrassed him by acting affectionate in front of the students). 

But the Potion's Master's bad temper aside, a combined class would not be practical--Harry could just picture a misfired Defense spell knocking over a Potions cauldron and setting off an explosion, which would in turn cause Snape to explode, figuratively speaking. Personally, Harry would much rather deal with an exploding cauldron than an exploding Snape.

But today Snape seemed...well, not in a good mood, exactly, but no more sour than usual. Lupin, of course, smiled sunnily and greeted everyone cheerfully. Snape listened to the story of their brief encounter with Imogen Macnair, then said, "I cannot say whether Miss Macnair's presence was purely coincidental or if she had ulterior motives, but I am absolutely certain that she and her brother were not Death Eaters."

"Well, maybe not officially, but are you certain that they weren't unofficially helping out their father?" Kingsley asked. "And are you sure they were really in Europe for the past few years?"

"I am absolutely certain," Snape said firmly, looking a little annoyed at having to repeat himself. "Macnair is a sadistic bastard, but he loves his children." He smiled wryly at the look of surprise on Kingsley's face. "Macnair noticed, as all the Death Eaters did, the signs that Voldemort was returning the year of the Triwizard Tournament. There was the Dark Mark cast at the Quidditch World Cup, and the Marks on our arms growing increasingly darker. Thaddeus Nott and Lucius Malfoy had no qualms about turning over their children to the Dark Lord, but Macnair didn't want to risk his offspring being injured or killed if war broke out--and I'm sure he knew that the Dark Lord was just as much danger to them as the Aurors, if not more so. 

"He sent Imogen to be apprenticed to a witch in France; wealthy young pureblood women often go to France after graduation for an 'apprenticeship' that's really more of an extended vacation, a chance to gain some sophistication and culture. It's not as common now as it was in my mother's day, but it's still considered the genteel thing to do among a certain social set. As for Warren, he was sent to an acquaintance of Macnair's in Romania, a famous Dark Wizard. Macnair claimed that he had sent his son to study the Dark Arts in order to make him worthy of becoming a Death Eater, but it was really just an excuse to send his children away from England and out of Voldemort's reach."

"And Macnair confided this to you?" Kingsley asked skeptically.

"Of course not, you idiot," Snape replied irritably, while Kingsley glared at him and Tonks lifted her hand to her face to hide a smile. For some reason that Harry couldn't quite understand, Tonks seemed to like Snape, and found his rudeness more amusing than annoying.

"He would never openly discuss his weaknesses with anyone, not even a fellow Death Eater," Snape continued. "Admitting that he didn't trust our Master would be considered treason, and admitting to loving his children would mark them as hostages that could be used against him. However, as a skilled Legilimens and spy, it was quite easy for me to discern Macnair's true motives without him needing to state them openly."

"But did the other Death Eaters--and more importantly, Voldemort--really buy such a flimsy story?" Tonks asked.

Snape shrugged. "I doubt it, but most of the Death Eaters probably assumed that he just didn't want to put his heir at risk; even Lucius valued Draco to a certain extent, as his heir and the means to carry on the Malfoy name, if nothing else. As for the Dark Lord, he was too preoccupied with figuring out how to destroy Potter to worry about the Macnair children, although it did mark Macnair as being somewhat less than completely devoted to his Lord. 

"But I'm sure that Macnair thought he could play it both ways--to keep his son and daughter safely out of England if Voldemort lost the war, or to bring them home to take the Dark Mark as loyal Death Eaters if Voldemort won. As it turns out, he was right to have sent them away. And whatever favor he might have lost in his Master's eyes, he quickly regained when he was able to convince the giants to side with the Death Eaters. He had also betrothed his son to Augustus Rookwood's granddaughter as a show of his commitment to the Death Eaters, but the Rookwood family broke off the engagement after the war ended and Augustus was arrested."

"Do you think that Macnair's children are dangerous, Professor?" Harry asked, trying to keep his voice neutral and non-accusing.

Snape scowled at him anyway, but answered his question. "Yes and no, Potter. Warren and Imogen are devoted to their father and would no doubt like to seek revenge for him if they could. The Macnair family is unusually close for a bunch of ruthless, ambitious purebloods, perhaps because the twins' mother died in childbirth, and Macnair raised them himself and never remarried. 

"However, Warren and Imogen are reasonably intelligent, or at least they were when I taught them at Hogwarts, and I doubt that they would be foolish enough to attempt a prison break or an attack on the Ministry now. They're smart enough to know that such an attempt would certainly be doomed to failure with the Aurors watching them so closely, and without any support from their father's colleagues, who are all currently dead or in prison. In a few years, perhaps, when the fear of the Death Eaters has died down and people have begun to forget...but for now, I don't think that they'll do anything foolish."

"That's not exactly reassuring, Snape," Kingsley sighed.

"You didn't ask me to be reassuring," Snape pointed out sourly. "You asked for my opinion of the Macnair children and I gave it to you."

"And we're grateful for the information, Severus," Tonks said soothingly. "Thank you. We'll continue to watch the Macnairs, but it's good to know that they're not an immediate threat. Could we offer the two of you some tea as thanks for your help?"

Snape looked as though he wanted to say "no," but Lupin cheerfully replied, "Thank you. It would be nice to have a chance to talk to Harry about how his new job is going."

"It's going fine, Prof...er, Remus," Harry said, grinning at Lupin while Snape scowled.

"We can't stay too long, though," Lupin continued, giving Snape a sly sidelong glance. "I have some...research...I'd like to conduct this afternoon."

"Research?" Tonks asked, although from the way Snape's face was turning red, Harry had a feeling that he didn't really want to hear Lupin's reply.

"Oh, I'm writing a book about lycanthropy," Lupin said sweetly. "A textbook to correct all the lies and misconceptions in less well-researched publications."

"That sounds like a wonderful idea, Remus!" Tonks said enthusiastically. "Don't you think so, Severus?"

"Lupin is certainly dedicated to this new project," Snape replied dryly. "He's been conducting downright exhaustive 'research' on it."

A slightly sarcastic emphasis on the word "research" caused Kingsley to raise his eyebrows and Lupin to laugh--a surprisingly wicked sound for the mild-mannered Gryffindor; it sounded almost Slytherin-ish. Snape actually smiled when he heard it.

"You really don't want to know," Harry whispered to Kingsley.

"I think you're right, Harry," Kingsley replied, and changed the subject to talk of Quidditch while a giggling Tonks put on a kettle of tea to boil.

*** 

Sometime later, while they were in bed in their quarters at Hogwarts, Snape stopped in the middle of lovemaking and asked suspiciously, "You're not really going to put this in the book, are you, Remus?"

"Severus," Lupin groaned, squirming beneath Snape impatiently, "can't we discuss this later?"

"I'd prefer to discuss it now," Snape said firmly. "And I'd prefer not to have the intimate details of my personal life printed for the entire wizarding world to read."

Despite his impatience, Lupin grinned up at his lover mischievously. "But it would make a fascinating chapter, don't you think, Sev? 'Chapter Ten: The Mating Habits of Werewolves'..."

Snape glared at him and started to pull away, and Lupin frantically wrapped his arms and legs around Snape, trying to hold him in place. "Merlin's Beard, Severus, I was just kidding! You have no sense of humor."

"I have a very Slytherin sense of humor, Lupin," Snape retorted, then smiled wickedly. "For example, I would find it very amusing to torment you until you beg me to let you come." 

He gently nipped at Lupin's throat, and Lupin began squirming with renewed urgency and moaned, "Oh please, Severus..."

"Well, that didn't take very long," Snape said, pretending to be disappointed. "You Gryffindors have no sense of self-control."

"No, we don't," Lupin agreed in a husky whisper, licking his lips and giving Snape a come-hither look; the Potions Master swallowed hard and his body quivered slightly, but he otherwise managed to remain still, determined to prove that Slytherins had more self-control than Gryffindors. "Especially when we're werewolves," Lupin continued, growling and baring his teeth playfully, and another tremor ran through Snape's body. "Ooh, you like it when I get wolfish, don't you?" Lupin teased. "So why don't you ravish me, Lord Snape, until the wolf howls in ecstasy?"

"'Ravish'?" Snape asked incredulously. "You really have been reading too many of Prospero's romance novels, Lupin! I told you that they'd rot your brain--"

Lupin snarled impatiently, then grabbed Snape's face and pulled it down towards his own, firmly cutting off Snape's complaints with a deep kiss. Snape could not have broken free even if he'd wanted to, which he didn't; Lupin was normally so gentle that it was easy to forget that he possessed the supernatural strength of a werewolf.

"Ravish me," Lupin commanded in a low growl that caused all Snape's resistance to melt away, and he obeyed with commendable haste, thrusting hard and fast into Lupin as the werewolf moaned and growled, his body writhing beneath Snape's, his fingers clawing urgently at Snape's back. Snape wondered, not for the first time, which one of them was really the alpha wolf in this relationship, for all that Lupin claimed that Snape was the "leader" of their little "pack". Then Lupin tilted his head back, offering up his throat, and Snape decided that it really didn't matter. He bit down on Lupin's throat, delighting in the wolf's howl of ecstasy as they both came.

They were both so caught up in the wolf's urgent lust that the actual lovemaking lasted only a couple of minutes. "Didn't you say that werewolves are supposed to have incredible stamina?" Snape asked dryly as they lay side-by-side in bed afterwards, both of them panting slightly.

"I'd advise you to relax while you can, Sev," Lupin said with a grin. "I feel a second wind coming on."

"More research?" Snape asked with a straight face.

"If I'm going to write an accurate textbook, it's necessary for me to research the subject quite thoroughly," Lupin replied.

"That is the responsible thing to do," Snape agreed. "I suppose that as a fellow scholar, it is my duty to cooperate and aid you with your research." He gave Lupin a baleful, threatening look. "I certainly don't intend to let you conduct 'research' with anyone else."

Lupin just laughed and reached out to embrace his lover.

*** 

Meanwhile, Ash was in the middle of his fencing lesson with Tsubasa. They had the Physical Defense classroom to themselves, and Ash darted around the room, trying to evade Tsubasa's blows while simultaneously trying to get close enough to land a blow on his instructor. This might have been easier had he been fighting a normal human; werewolf speed and strength would have compensated for his lack of experience at swordfighting. However, Tsubasa was as quick as a werewolf and even more agile, and Ash found himself constantly on the defensive, with little chance to make an offensive strike.

Further complicating matters was the fact that it was very difficult to concentrate with his inner wolf aroused by the adrenaline rushing through his body; there was something strangely sensual about their sparring match, almost as if it were a rather violent courtship dance. The Wolfsbane Potion kept the beast within under control, but it could not completely suppress the wolf's violent nature. Ash was aroused by the battle, and distracted by Tsubasa's tantalizing scent, made stronger by the sharp tang of sweat--slightly pungent and deliciously male, with a hint of something exotic that Ash couldn't readily identify.

Further fueling his distraction was a growing sense of frustration. Ash had wanted the beautiful swordsman ever since he had first laid eyes on him, driven by an instinctive, animal-like hunger, but Tsubasa remained infuriatingly elusive. Not that he was unfriendly, but he managed to neatly sidestep all of Ash's attempts to ask him out, without actually turning Ash down outright. Each time that Ash suggested that they go out for a drink or a bite to eat after their lesson, Tsubasa would come up with some excuse to avoid it, like having to grade papers or tutor a student or attend a staff meeting. 

Ash would have assumed that he just wasn't interested, except that he always sounded genuinely regretful when he turned down Ash's offers, and Ash could swear that the crane man was giving off subtle signs of interest and attraction during their lessons, like some sort of damned pheromone. And it wasn't like he was completely avoiding Ash; he had consented to the lessons, after all, and the last time that he'd turned down Ash's offer to buy him dinner to repay him for the lessons, Tsubasa had said, "I'm sorry, but my aunt and uncle have invited me over to dinner tonight. Would you care to join us?" 

So he'd ended up having dinner with Tsubasa and the Kimuras and Aric, and Tsubasa often stopped by the mansion to dine with the werewolves on the weekends, but Ash still hadn't managed to spend any time alone with him outside of their lessons and it was driving him crazy.

Ash thought to himself despairingly that maybe it was stupid for him to even think that he had a chance with someone like Tsubasa. He was just a werewolf, after all--a nobody, an outcast, and despite his Ministry job, distrusted and feared by most of his coworkers. And there was the ugly scar running across his face; Ash still remembered how even the brothel owner he'd met as a child had dismissed him as damaged goods. Not that he'd wanted to become a prostitute, but when even the scum of Knockturn Alley had rejected him, how could he possibly be worthy of someone as perfect as Tsubasa?

Well, actually he was just assuming that Tsubasa was perfect. The kimono and hakama trousers that Tsubasa always wore covered up almost as much of his body as a normal robe would, exposing only his face, neck, forearms, feet, and ankles. Ash couldn't imagine Tsubasa being anything less than flawless beneath his clothing, but still, he longed to see for himself and verify that. 

Tsubasa's hakama was not fastened up the front with a fly like a normal pair of trousers, but instead was slit up the sides and held in place by two pairs of ties that were wrapped and knotted around his waist. The slits gaped open over his hips, although of course they only exposed the kimono that he wore beneath them instead of bare flesh. But Ash couldn't help but wonder what he would look like wearing nothing beneath his hakama...

A stinging pain across the backs of his legs and then a hard blow to his stomach rudely interrupted his fantasy, and Ash found himself lying flat on his back, groaning in pain as he looked up at a frowning Tsubasa.

"If my sword had been made of steel instead of wood, you would be hamstrung and gutted right now," the crane man said disapprovingly. "You could have evaded my attack if you had been paying attention, but your mind seemed to be elsewhere."

Ash felt his face grow hot; he could hardly confess that he'd been distracted by sexual fantasies about his instructor. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"Well, never mind," Tsubasa sighed. "I think that's enough for today. We've been at this for over an hour, so perhaps you were just tired. You're actually doing extremely well for a beginner. It would take a normal human months or even years to progress to this point. I suppose it must be your werewolf strength and reflexes." He smiled, offering his hand to Ash. "And perhaps the wolf's natural instincts as a predator."

Ash took the other man's hand and allowed Tsubasa to pull him to his feet. They replaced their wooden swords back on the weapons racks on the wall, and Tsubasa tossed him a towel so that he could wipe off his face; they were both dripping with sweat from their vigorous workout. 

And then Tsubasa did something completely unexpected: he shrugged his shoulders and slipped his arms out of the sleeves of his kimono, allowing the garment to drop back and dangle from his waist, the bottom half of it still tucked in and held in place by the hakama. Tsubasa casually wiped the sweat from his bare torso with another towel while Ash stared in fascination. Yes, Tsubasa was as perfect as he'd imagined, with smooth white skin that he ached to caress with his fingers, and flat brown nipples that he longed to run his tongue across, licking and nibbling at them until they hardened...

A drop of sweat trickled down Tsubasa's back, and without thinking, Ash found his hand reaching out to wipe it away; Tsubasa's skin was warm and damp, and he could feel the other man tremble slightly beneath his hand. He could see more beads of sweat forming, and he pressed his mouth against Tsubasa's back, his tongue darting out to lap up the salty liquid.

Tsubasa gasped, then abruptly pulled away from him, and Ash suddenly came to his senses. "I-I'm sorry," he stammered. "I just...I didn't mean to...I don't know what came over me..."

"It's all right," Tsubasa said, looking a little flushed and sounding slightly out of breath. "I'm not offended, just a little...startled."

Ash stared back at him in confusion. He could almost smell the desire radiating from Tsubasa, as clearly as the scent of sweat and exertion, and this time he was sure that it wasn't his imagination. But if Tsubasa wanted Ash as much as Ash wanted him, then why was he always pulling away?

Ash felt helpless and out of his element; although he had a reputation as a playboy among the pack, he usually let his lovers make the first move. And besides, all his affairs had been casual ones, since everyone in the pack had known that he wasn't looking for a serious relationship. Things had been as simple as asking (or being asked), "Would you like to spend the night with me?" If the answer was "yes," then both parties enjoyed a night of pleasure with no strings attached, and if the answer was "no," they would just shrug it off with no hard feelings on either side.

But now that he did want a serious relationship, Ash had no idea how to proceed with Tsubasa; he was used to being the one courted, not the one doing the courting. He wondered if the crane folk had some sort of formal courtship customs that he was supposed to be following, and if that was why Tsubasa was being so standoffish, because Ash wasn't doing things right. 

He had considered asking Takeshi for advice, but it seemed rather awkward to ask a former lover for advice on how to court someone new, especially since Tsubasa was Takeshi's cousin, although he knew that Takeshi would probably be happy to help him. Takeshi thought of their one night together as nothing more than a casual fling, but to Ash it had been something more, and somehow he just didn't feel comfortable going to Takeshi for help with his lovelife.

Then he remembered that Takeshi had already told him a little about crane courtship customs that night: "I might, for example, invite you to gaze upon the beauty of the stars and moon with me. That would signal that I was only interested in a tryst of a single night's length. But if I mentioned wanting to see the sunrise with you, which implies that you will still be here the next day, that would mean that I wished to pursue a more serious relationship with you."

So Ash gathered up his courage and asked, "Why don't you come to the mansion this weekend? We could have dinner with the pack, and afterwards...well, I have a bottle of good sake that Aric and Takeshi gave me, a souvenir from their summer vacation. I know of a nice spot on the estate grounds where we could share it while we gaze at the stars. And..." His voice faltered for a moment, and he was seized by a sudden impulse to flee like a coward, with his tail tucked between his legs. Instead he took a deep breath and continued, "And maybe...if you like...we could watch the sunrise together?"

Tsubasa tilted his head to one side, as if considering Ash's proposition, a quizzical smile on face. "I am very flattered, Ash, but before I can answer your question, you must answer a question for me."

That wasn't the response Ash had been expecting. "Uh...okay," he said hesitantly.

"What is it about me that you like, Ash?" Tsubasa asked, his tone of voice pleasant and light, but his dark brown eyes stared into Ash's intently.

"Um...ah...well...you're beautiful," Ash said, blurting out the first thing that came to mind.

"Ah, but all the crane folk are beautiful," Tsubasa replied lightly. "In fact, among my people, I would be considered only average in looks; there are many others much more beautiful than me."

Ash found that hard to imagine, and none of those other supposedly-more-beautiful crane folk were here, anyway, but he didn't think that was the answer that Tsubasa wanted to hear. "Well, of course I don't like you just for your looks," he said hastily. "I mean...I...well, it's difficult to put into words..."

"I suppose that I'm not being fair," Tsubasa said quietly, the light, almost joking quality gone from his voice now. "So I will come straight out and say what I really mean. Do truly want me, Ash, or do you just want me because I remind you of my cousin?" Ash's jaw dropped in shock. When he did not reply right away, Tsubasa persisted, "You were, at one time, in love with Takeshi, weren't you?"

"How did you know?" Ash whispered. "I never told anyone...none of the pack, not even Lukas..."

Tsubasa smiled slightly, as if amused by his reaction. "Only someone who has courted or been courted by one of the crane folk would know that bit about the stars and the sunrise. And of course there is the fact that Aric, who seems to be very possessive of his mate, has been trying so hard to get the two of us together. Almost as if he were trying to get rid of a rival, don't you think?"

Ash flushed and hung his head. "I wasn't really a rival," he mumbled. "We were...together...only once. I was just trying to comfort Takeshi after Aric's family betrothed him to some pureblood girl. To him it was only a...a night of stargazing. He doesn't know how I feel. Felt."

"That doesn't surprise me," Tsubasa sighed. "For such an intelligent young man, my cousin can be rather dense in matters of the heart. I'm happy that he's settled down with Aric, but you should have met some of his past lovers..." Tsubasa sighed again and shook his head.

Ash thought it was just as well that he hadn't met any of Takeshi's other lovers. "Please don't tell him," Ash begged. "It would only make him feel bad that he hurt me, and it wasn't his fault. And it's all in the past now, honest. I cared for him, but I knew that we weren't meant to be lifemates. It hurt a little to see him get together with Aric, but I was happy to see him so happy. I've moved on. I'm a wolf; we live in the present and we don't waste our time moping over the past. I want you, Tsubasa, not Takeshi."

"You are a wolf, but you are also human, Ash," Tsubasa replied, the look in his eyes sympathetic but still a little skeptical. "Can you honestly say that you never dwell on the past? I have spent some time with your pack--not enough to claim that I know them well, but enough to say that some of them still mourn their past lives before they were turned."

Ash bit his lip in consternation, knowing that Tsubasa was right about that, at least. Ash still had bitter thoughts from time to time about his childhood and the family he had fled from. "That's different," he said lamely. "That has nothing to do with me and Takeshi."

"I know that you believe you are speaking the truth," Tsubasa said. "But I am not sure that you truly believe it deep in your heart. I like you well enough to spend a night of stargazing with you without hesitation, if that was all you wanted. But you are asking for something more, so I must be certain of your heart before I can watch the sunrise with you. My people mate for life, and we do not give our hearts lightly." 

Ash stared at him helplessly, feeling tongue-tied and unable to find the words to convince Tsubasa that he really was telling the truth. While Ash was struggling inwardly, Tsubasa turned away, pulling his kimono back on. "Take some time and think it over," Tsubasa said. "As I said, when you can answer my question, then I shall answer yours." He smiled, but it was the polite and remote smile of a casual acquaintance, not a potential lover. "I'll be busy at Hogwarts this weekend, but I'll see you again at the usual time for your lesson next Monday."

*** 

After Ash left, looking confused and a little angry, Tsubasa leaned against the wall and sighed, feeling shakier than he had let on to Ash; it had been foolish of him to tease a werewolf. Ash had been pursuing him, but with a shyness and diffidence that he hadn't expected of a wolf, and Tsubasa had tired of dancing around and finally, had deliberately provoked Ash by taking off his kimono. He found the werewolf attractive, but he hadn't expected his body to respond so strongly to the touch of Ash's hand and mouth; for one insane moment, he had seriously contemplated having sex with Ash right there in the classroom.

That loss of control was a sign that Ash might very well be destined to be his mate, a thought that both excited and frightened Tsubasa. He ought to be thrilled; it was every young crane's dearest wish to find his or her soulmate, but things were more complicated than that, because Ash was not a crane. If they fell in love and it didn't work out, Ash could move on, but Tsubasa would be bound to him forever. On the other hand, if it didn't work out, then it probably meant that Ash wasn't really his soulmate.

Tsubasa had also been exaggerating somewhat when he had told Ash that he was "only average in looks". He was considered to be quite handsome by his fellow cranes, although there were a few others in the clan who were so stunningly beautiful that they made him look almost plain by comparison--including his nemesis Kazuhiko-sama, at least when he wasn't contorting his lovely features by scowling at Tsubasa for not behaving like a proper crane should. 

But beauty was only skin deep, as the saying went, and Tsubasa wanted to be loved for more than his beauty. Because of his looks, he had been very popular as a student at Salem, and he had found the attention flattering at first. But it had not been so flattering when he had realized that his admirers weren't really interested in him, but were only dazzled by his pretty face. He wanted to be certain that what Ash felt was more than simple lust and infatuation--or misplaced affection for Takeshi--before he considered entering into a relationship with the werewolf. 

Tsubasa sighed again. Well, there was no need to rush into things. There was plenty of time for Ash to work out his true feelings, plenty of time for the two of them to get to know each other before they decided if they were meant to be lifemates or just friends.

At least, Tsubasa's head knew that there was plenty of time; his libido was a good deal more impatient. But the grueling training that he had undergone with the tengu had taught him discipline; the crow people liked to joke and play around, and sometimes seemed frivolous to outsiders, but they were deadly serious when it came to the arts of weaponry and warfare. So instead of running after Ash as he wanted, Tsubasa decided to go back to his quarters and take a cold shower.

*** 

Ash hurried from the classroom, feeling confused and frustrated, going over Tsubasa's words in his head. Was he really only using Tsubasa as a substitute for Takeshi? He had never stopped to think about it up until now. His inner wolf had been instantly drawn to Tsubasa from the moment they had met, and Ash had followed his instincts without question. If he'd thought about it at all, it was only to feel relieved that he could have these feelings for someone other than Takeshi, someone single and available.

Ash didn't really care for tales of star-crossed lovers like the one about Lancelot and Guinevere in the old book of King Arthur stories he had read as a child. He had never been much of a romantic, and he had thought that it was stupid to waste time pining over someone who could never be yours; it was better to find someone else that you could be with. 

Of course, he had ended up pining over Takeshi for a bit, but even then, he had assumed that he would eventually get over it--he'd certainly had no intention of trying to steal Takeshi from his rightful mate, or alternately, spending the rest of his life in celibacy mourning his lost love. He had wished Takeshi well, mourned for a few months, and then gotten on with his life. He'd had a couple of casual affairs to take his mind off of things (although with limited success), and then begun looking for someone who could become his mate.

He had thought that perhaps he had found that person in Tsubasa, but could he be wrong? Was it merely lust and thwarted desire? Had he only projected his feelings for Takeshi onto Tsubasa because they looked alike? But despite the physical resemblance, Takeshi and his cousin were not really that similar in personality...

Lost in thought, Ash was not really watching where he was going, and as he rounded a corner, he walked right into a young student who was hurrying down the corridor; the girl exclaimed in surprise and dropped a cloth sack that she'd been carrying. "Oh, I'm sorry," Ash said, bending down to help her pick up the leaves that had spilled out of the sack.

"It's my fault, too," the girl said apologetically; she was about fourteen or fifteen, with a pretty, heart-shaped face and wavy chestnut hair. "Mr. Filch always tells us not to run in the halls." She smiled up at him, then her eyes widened in surprise.

Ash didn't really think much about her reaction; as the resident werewolf at the Ministry, he was used to people staring at him. He supposed that she probably recognized him from the Daily Prophet, and was surprised to encounter Arthur Weasley's pet werewolf (as some of the purebloods scornfully called him) at Hogwarts. She didn't look disdainful, though, only startled, and she politely said, "Thank you," as he placed the stray leaves back into the sack.

"You're welcome," Ash said, smiling at her in a distracted manner, then continued on his way. Something about the girl was disturbingly familiar, and after thinking about it for a moment, he realized that she looked a bit like his mother, Rosalind. Other than Great-Aunt Ernestine, he had never seen his Parker relatives much even after his mother had respectably married, and he had not kept track of how many cousins he had. 

He supposed it was possible that the girl might be a distant relative on the Parker side, but it didn't really matter, as he had no intention of renewing contact with his family, who would no doubt prefer that he remain dead to them, anyway. Besides, the girl might not even be a Parker; the resemblance might simply be a coincidence. After all, there must be plenty of girls with reddish-brown hair.

So Ash brushed the matter from his mind, being more concerned about his problems with Tsubasa. Since it was impossible to Apparate on the school grounds, he used the fireplace in Lukas's office to commute to and from Hogwarts for his lessons. He was hoping that his pack leader had already returned home, but Lukas was sitting at his desk going over some papers when Ash arrived.

"How did the lesson go?" Lukas asked with a smile. "Not well, judging by the look on your face."

Ash wasn't in the mood to discuss his lovelife right now, not even with his beloved pack leader and friend, so he simply said, "I thought that I was improving, but Tsubasa disarmed me with a surprise move, and I'm not sure how to counter it."

Lukas smiled at him knowingly and said, "Oh, I'm sure that you'll figure it out, Ash. You're new to this, after all. You'll be fine with a little more practice."

Ash flushed, catching the double meaning behind Lukas's words. It was certainly true that he had little experience with love. Sex, yes--but not love and romance. He wasn't sure that more "practice" would help, and how was he supposed to "practice," anyway, when Tsubasa wouldn't cooperate?

"I suppose you're right, Lukas," Ash sighed, not very confidently. Then before Lukas could question him further, Ash threw a handful of Floo Powder into the fireplace and returned to his home in London.

*** 

Laura's heart was pounding with excitement, as she finally realized why her brother's picture looked so familiar. It was because it reminded her of the man she had just--quite literally--run into. Ash...something. She couldn't remember his last name, but she remembered seeing his picture in the Daily Prophet twice--once when he and Master Diggory had saved a child from a runaway Graphorn in Diagon Alley, and the second time when Arthur Weasley had hired him to work at the Ministry of Magic. It had caused quite an outcry in the wizarding world, because a werewolf had never worked at the Ministry before.

Surely it couldn't be a coincidence that he resembled the boy in the photograph; he had the same dark brown hair and angular face as Ethan, although the older man's hair was streaked with gray. And he had hazel eyes that were the exact same color as Laura's and her mother's. Surely it couldn't be a coincidence that this Ash was a werewolf, when her brother had supposedly been killed by one. 

Maybe Ethan hadn't died, after all! She didn't know why he had disappeared, but maybe he had been afraid that the Ministry would lock him up as a dangerous beast, or maybe he had run away because he was afraid that he might hurt his family during the full moon. The Wolfsbane Potion hadn't been invented back then, after all. Or maybe he had run away because he was ashamed, afraid that it would disgrace the family name if everyone knew that he was a werewolf. Maybe he had been trying to protect Mother and Father, not knowing how much they would mourn his death.

But she had to be certain that he was really her brother before she told her parents about him and got their hopes up. And she had been born after he disappeared; he might not even know that she existed, and would certainly think she was crazy if a strange girl came running up to him out of nowhere claiming to be his sister.

The corridor he had come from led straight to the Physical Defense classroom, which was where Laura had been heading in the first place, so she ran down the hall and this time she nearly ran into Professor Tsubasa.

"Be careful, Miss Madley," he said as he reached out to place his hands on her shoulders and steady her so that she didn't fall. "Why are you in such a rush?"

"Oh!" Laura gasped breathlessly. "Professor Sprout asked me to bring you these hyssop leaves." She held up the sack that she was carrying. "She said that you wanted them to make a bruise remedy for your Physical Defense students."

"I did, and thank you," Tsubasa said, taking the sack from her. "But it wasn't really urgent." He smiled and added, "I appreciate your enthusiasm, but there was no need to risk life and limb running through Hogwarts to bring them to me."

Laura blushed at his gentle teasing, and admitted, "Oh, that wasn't really why I was running, although I was bringing you the leaves. I...I bumped into a man coming down this corridor. A man with long gray and brown hair...I think he works for the Ministry...do you know him?"

"Yes, that would be Mr. Randolf," Tsubasa replied. "He's a friend of mine; I've been giving him fencing lessons in my spare time." He raised an eyebrow. "And why were you running from Mr. Randolf? He is a werewolf, but that's no reason to fear--"

"I wasn't running from him," Laura hastily assured her teacher. "I was coming to see you. I...you see...I think I know him. I mean, I don't know him personally, but...I think...I think we might be related. He...resembles someone in my family very much."

"I see," Tsubasa murmured, staring at Laura closely, perhaps looking for some resemblance between herself and his friend. "I know that many of the werewolves are estranged from their biological families..."

"I don't know exactly what happened, but they think he's dead!" Laura said earnestly. "If he really is who I think he is, they would be so happy to know that he's alive!"

"Would they?" Tsubasa asked cynically. "Many families pretend that their werewolf relatives are deceased, to explain their absence to neighbors and acquaintances after they have disowned the werewolf and driven him or her away from home..."

"It's not like that!" Laura insisted. "They really do think that he's dead! So I can't tell them about Mr. Randolf until I know for sure that he's really my...that he's really the person I'm thinking of." She wasn't sure why she didn't want to tell Professor Tsubasa that she thought Ash Randolf was her brother. She felt a little awkward discussing something so personal with a teacher she barely knew, but mostly she was afraid to speak the words aloud, as if doing so might make them not true, like breaking a spell, although she knew that she was probably being silly. 

"Please, Professor," Laura begged. "If I write a letter, will you take it to your friend and arrange a meeting with him?"

Tsubasa frowned, looking troubled. "Well...if you give me the letter, I will take it to him," he said reluctantly. "But it will be up to Mr. Randolf as to whether he wants to meet you or not."

"Thank you, Professor!" Laura exclaimed. "I'll go write the letter right now!"

*** 

"Bring it to my office when you're done," Tsubasa said. Hopefully, he'd be done showering by the time she finished writing it, although with the way her eyes were shining with excitement, that might be hoping for too much. "If I'm not there, just slip it under the door." When she stared at him anxiously, he added, "I promise that I'll go back to my office and pick it up this evening. But I need to get cleaned up before dinner." He gestured at his sweat-stained clothing.

"Oh, of course, Professor," Laura said. "Thank you so much!" And then she ran off in the direction of the Hufflepuff dormitory; Tsubasa hoped that she didn't run into--or run over--anyone else along the way.

He couldn't help but feel that all this boded ill for both himself and Ash, and probably Laura as well. Now he would have to face Ash again, much sooner than he had planned, when they were still both feeling aroused and confused. But more importantly, he couldn't picture a happy family reunion resulting from Laura's letter. 

Every member of Lukas's pack had been cast out by their families, and he doubted that Ash was an exception. He was tempted to refuse to deliver the letter, or to simply throw it away, but then Laura would probably seek Ash out on her own, and he thought it would be better to give Ash some warning before an estranged family member turned up on his doorstep. Besides, he had no right to make such a decision; it was up to Ash to decide whether or not he wanted to see his family.

Well, first things first. If he was going to see Ash tonight, he was definitely going to need a cold shower.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get heated between Ash and Tsubasa; Lupin and Snape discuss the past; Theodore comes home for a visit. This chapter contains an alternate history for Fenrir Greyback.

"I wonder what happened to Professor Tsubasa?" Lupin mused out loud, gazing at the empty chair at the head table in the Great Hall. "He didn't come down to dinner tonight."

Blaise, who happened to be sitting next to Lupin, pointed out, "The Headmaster told me that teachers aren't required to take meals at the school. Professor Blackmore and Master Diggory usually go home to have dinner with their families." As they had tonight, although Sirius occasionally came to the school to have dinner with his wife instead of the other way around. As for Lukas, now that he was married with a baby on the way, he faithfully rushed home to fuss over his wife each night after he was done working.

"Yes, but Tsubasa usually eats dinner in the Great Hall, at least during the school week," Lupin said with a smile. "Although he does sometimes visit his friends or family on the weekends."

"There's a first time for everything, Lupin," Snape said tartly. "And anyway, it's none of your business."

"Oh, and are you telling me that Slytherins never gossip and speculate?" Lupin retorted good-naturedly. "You know, I believe that Ash came by today for his fencing lesson."

"How delightful for Mr. Randolf," Snape said sarcastically. "Really, Lupin, I couldn't care less about who Tsubasa has dinner with." He glanced around and noticed that Flitwick and Hagrid were listening in on their conversation curiously.

"Professor Tsubasa likes men?" he overheard Hagrid whispering to Flitwick in a surprised voice. Lupin grinned, Blaise tried to hide a smile, and McGonagall, who was sitting next to Hagrid, frowned. Snape rolled his eyes; Hagrid was probably the only member of the staff who hadn't at least suspected that, considering Tsubasa's almost feminine grace and beauty, although beauty wasn't necessarily an indicator of sexual preference.

"And it's hardly professional to be gossiping about one of your colleagues," Snape added pointedly, speaking to Lupin although he raised his voice slightly so that Flitwick and Hagrid could hear him, and they immediately pretended to be fascinated by the food on their plates. McGonagall smiled slightly and gave Snape an approving nod.

"You're right, Severus," Lupin said in a repentant voice, hanging his head meekly, but there was a glimmer of mischief in his eyes that only Snape and Blaise noticed.

"I just got a letter from Theodore," Blaise said, to change the subject. "He's coming home this weekend for a visit."

"So did we!" Lupin said, beaming happily, momentarily forgetting about Tsubasa and Ash. "I'm sure that Lady Selima will want to throw a dinner party for him. You'll come, won't you, Blaise?"

"Of course, Remus, as long as I'm invited," Blaise replied with a smile.

"I'm sure that Mother intends to invite you and your grandfather, Zabini, but you may officially consider yourself invited by the Lord of Snape Manor," Snape said with a careless wave of his hand, and Blaise grinned.

"Then I'll be delighted to attend, Professor."

"And don't worry," Lupin said with a sly smile. "We won't keep Theodore at the Manor all night. I'm sure the two of you would like to spend a little time alone."

Blaise blushed, and Snape said dryly, "What did I say about gossiping about your colleagues, Lupin?"

"I'm just stating a fact, Severus," Lupin said, winking at Blaise.

For once, the merciless Potions Master took a little pity on his former student, and this time he was the one who changed the subject. "Did you know that Imogen Macnair was working at the museum, Zabini?"

Blaise looked a little surprised but grateful at the change of subject. "Yes, Professor," he replied. "She started there just a little after I did. But I didn't see much of her; she works in the office and keeps to herself." He smiled wryly. "The Zabinis are--or were--far below the status of the Macnairs, and mostly they snubbed me in school, so I never knew either Imogen or her brother very well. But still, I feel a little sorry for her. She used to be one of the popular girls in Slytherin, walking around proudly with her head held high, and now she creeps around the museum with her head bowed, as if she's ashamed, and the other workers gossip about her."

"So you don't know who she associates with?" Snape asked.

"No, I think that most of the Macnairs' friends and allies have abandoned them," Blaise replied.

"That's not surprising," Snape said cynically.

"Why do you ask, Professor?" Blaise inquired curiously.

"No real reason," Snape said, with an indifferent shrug of his shoulders. "An Auror that I know happened to stop by the museum, and he noticed Miss Macnair, so he asked me about her. Being paranoid is a job requirement for the Aurors, I believe."

"Like Mad-Eye Moody?" Blaise asked, smiling. "Draco found that out the hard way." His smile grew a little wider at the memory of Draco as "the amazing bouncing ferret". "Except that I guess it wasn't the real Moody who did that," Blaise added.

"Well, Mad-Eye did have justification for being paranoid," Lupin chuckled. "But hopefully the Aurors' concern about Miss Macnair is unnecessary."

*** 

Meanwhile, at the Hufflepuff table, Laura had also noticed that Professor Tsubasa's chair at the head table was empty, and thought that he must have taken her letter to his friend right away. She hadn't expected him to deliver it so promptly that he would skip dinner, but she was delighted and grateful. She shifted in her seat restlessly, so excited that she could hardly sit still, and her gaze fell upon Celine Thompson, one of the new first-year Hufflepuffs--a shy, pretty girl with long brown hair that she wore braided with ribbons.

Most of the Hufflepuffs were curious about her, because although she was human, her father was a werewolf, and she had grown up living with Master Diggory's pack. And a few of her new housemates were also a little wary of her, not so much because of her connection to the werewolves, but because she regularly received letters and packages from Draco and Narcissa Malfoy--except that it was Narcissa Diggory now that she had remarried. 

But Narcissa and Draco were supposedly reformed, and Celine earnestly assured everyone that Draco and "Aunt Cissy" were both very nice to her, so the Hufflepuffs tried to set aside their misgivings about the Malfoy family and make Celine feel welcome. Loyalty was a Hufflepuff virtue, and the Sorting Hat had put Celine in their House, after all. The Hufflepuffs tried not to think too much about Amos Diggory, who had dishonored his House by trying to frame and murder his nephew--but even then, his crimes had been committed in the name of loyalty to his late parents and the family honor, although of course that did not justify them.

But right now Laura was not concerned about Amos Diggory's crimes; she was suddenly recalling the fact that Ash Randolf was part of Master Diggory's pack, so that meant Celine must know him! "Celine?" she called, trying not to sound too eager.

"Yes?" Celine asked, looking flattered to be addressed by an older student.

"I was just wondering," Laura replied. "You live with Master Diggory's pack...or at least, you did before you came to Hogwarts."

"That's right," Celine said, smiling proudly.

"So that must mean that you know Ash Randolf, the werewolf who works at the Ministry?" Laura asked. 

Rosie frowned, gazing at her anxiously; Laura had confided in her best friend about her run-in with Mr. Randolf, of course, and Rosie was probably worried that she might let slip some information about Ethan. But of course she wouldn't mention to Celine that she thought Ash Randolf was her brother; no one would think it odd that she was curious about one of the werewolves, because everyone else was curious, too. And after all, she had promised Rosie that she wouldn't talk about Ethan in public, but once she confirmed Ethan's true identity and he was reunited with his family, there would be no need for secrecy. She could hardly wait for that day to come!

But for now, it still had to remain a secret, so Laura added casually, "I was just curious, because I happened to run into him before dinner, when I was running an errand for Professor Sprout, taking some herbs to Professor Tsubasa."

"Yes, Uncle Ash is taking lessons in swordfighting from Professor Tsubasa," Celine said cheerfully. "He stops by the school about three times a week, I think."

"Really?" Kevin Whitby asked in surprise. "I didn't know that."

One of the other Hufflepuff girls spared Laura the trouble of asking, "So what is he like? Your 'Uncle' Ash, I mean. He's not really your uncle, is he?"

"No, but all the adults in the pack look after all the cubs--um, I mean, children," Celine replied. "So we call everyone 'Uncle' or 'Aunt'. Some people think that Uncle Ash looks scary, because of his scar, but he's really very kind. When I was little, he used to look after me sometimes when my parents were at work, and he'd play with me and read stories to me. Well, actually, we didn't have many books, but he would make up wonderful stories about dragons and knights and princesses."

Laura listened avidly; that fit her fantasy image of Ethan, whom she'd always imagined as a kind and loving brother, and it also fit in with the reality of the book of fairy tales she had found in the attic. He must have remembered those stories and told them to the young Celine.

"And Uncle Ash is very good with Muggle devices," Celine continued proudly. "Even if he comes across a new device that he's never seen before, with no instruction booklet, he can usually figure out how to work it in just a short time."

"That must be why the Minister of Magic hired him," Tristan Ames said with a smile. The second-year boy looked after Celine protectively like an older brother, perhaps because his cousin was Master Diggory, the leader of the werewolves. "Arthur Weasley loves Muggle technology." 

"I don't think that he looks scary at all," one of the seventh-year girls giggled. "In fact, I think he looks very handsome. Does your Uncle Ash have a girlfriend, Celine?"

Celine grinned and said, "The other pack members say that Uncle Ash is a playboy. He's had lots of lovers, but he's never been interested in settling down with someone special before."

"Before?" the seventh-year girl asked. "Is he interested in someone now?"

Celine giggled mischievously. "Oh, I couldn't say. But my mum says that now that he has a respectable job, maybe he's willing to finally settle down and find a mate."

Laura noticed that Celine always spoke in wolf terms--things like "cubs" and "pack" and "mate"--which was no doubt the result of growing up in a werewolf pack. Meanwhile, the other girls were pressing Celine for more information about her Uncle Ash, but were distracted when the Malfoys' eagle owl flew into the Great Hall and landed on the Hufflepuff table, dropping a large package in front of Celine.

"Thank you, Ares," Celine said, feeding him a bit of roast beef from her plate. The owl gently took the tidbit from her fingers, being careful not to harm her with his large and sharp hooked beak. He gave her a dignified nod of acknowledgment, then launched himself into the air and flew off.

"What did you get?" her fellow first-years asked eagerly, and Celine opened the package to reveal a large box of Honeydukes chocolate and some hair ribbons--yellow and black, Hufflepuff colors.

"Draco's mum is always sending you presents," a first-year boy marveled.

"She says that she's always wanted a daughter to fuss over," Celine said, smiling. "So she fusses over the girls in the pack. And I think she misses looking after Draco now that he's all grown up, but in a few months she'll have baby Cedric to fuss over."

"It's hard to believe that they've really changed," Owen Cauldwell said skeptically.

"It was hard for me to believe at first, too," Tristan said. "But do you really think that Narcissa would have married a werewolf if she hadn't?"

"Well, you do have a point there," Owen admitted.

"I never knew Draco and Aunt Cissy before the marriage, although I heard bad things about the Malfoys," Celine said earnestly. "But whatever they were like before, they must have changed, because they're both so nice to me--to all of the pack. Aunt Cissy bought all my school books and supplies, and Draco gave me flying lessons over the summer. He says that he'll coach me if I want to try out for the Quidditch team when I get older, although he isn't sure if he should help a Hufflepuff beat Slytherin." She giggled and added, "I think he was a little disappointed when I wasn't Sorted into Slytherin, but I think that I'm better suited to Hufflepuff, because wolves are loyal to the pack the way that Hufflepuffs are loyal to each other."

The other Hufflepuffs looked a little startled, but they nodded, pleased with Celine's response. Even if the comparison to wolves was a bit odd, she was loyal to her House the way that a Hufflepuff should be.

"You really do think like a wolf, don't you, Celine?" Zacharias Smith chuckled good-naturedly. 

"It's because I grew up with the pack," Celine replied, blushing.

"Well, a wolf is fierce and loyal, so that's not a bad thing," Zacharias declared, and Celine beamed at him, practically glowing at the older boy's praise. Laura remembered feeling much the same way as a first-year whenever Cedric spoke to her.

Celine passed the box of candy around the table, sharing it with her housemates, and told them a little more about life in the pack. It had not been an easy life--the werewolves had lived in poverty, and many times they had gone hungry--but clearly Celine had grown up feeling loved and protected. 

Laura was gratified to know that her brother really was a kind person as she had imagined, and she couldn't wait to meet him and have her entire family back together. Since Celine was part of Ethan's--Ash's--family, that would make the younger girl sort of a foster sister, but Laura didn't mind. She liked Celine, and she had always wanted a younger sister.

*** 

Rose Zeller--known to her friends as "Rosie"--frowned at Laura, who was smiling dreamily, oblivious to her best friend's worries. It had been all right for Laura to spin fantasies about her brother when Ethan had been safely dead, but now...Rosie worried that the family reunion Laura was planning might not turn out as happily as she expected. Laura tended to have an idealized vision of the world in general and her family in particular, but Rosie knew that Alden Madley was not always a nice man. He was a fair employer who paid his workers well, and he was generous in many ways--he helped pay for their children's school expenses, and had in fact paid for a good portion of the cost of Rosie's school books and uniforms, for which she was grateful.

But he could also be a stern and harsh man if someone defied him; he had fired workers in the past for breaking minor infractions of the rules. She had overheard her parents talking about how Mr. Madley had once doted on his beautiful wife after they first married, but something had gone wrong and he had turned cold towards her...perhaps it had been Ethan's death. 

And Mr. Madley was a very proud man; he was embarrassed about his Muggle origins, and hated it when someone brought it up--which the farm workers never did, at least in his presence, since they wanted to keep their jobs. He might not welcome a werewolf son...and there was something very odd about the silence surrounding Ethan's death, something that went beyond a parent's reluctance to bring up painful memories.

Rosie wasn't sure that she wanted to know the secret behind Ethan's disappearance. She liked her life the way it was now: her father happy with a stable job that provided a good life for his family, and her own friendship with Laura. All of that might be in jeopardy if Mr. Madley was not happy with Ethan's return and he found out that the Zellers had something to do with it. And although it was a terrible thought, she wished that Ethan would just remain dead.

Rosie immediately felt guilty and revised her wish slightly: she didn't wish any harm on Ethan, but she hoped that Ash Randolf would not turn out to be Ethan Madley after all. The adult werewolf did bear a slight resemblance to the boy in the photograph, but it was impossible to tell just from the picture whether the two were one and the same. It was probably only Laura's wishful thinking, Rosie tried to reassure herself.

But although she had little talent for Divination and normally scoffed at Professor Trelawney's lessons, Rosie had a strong premonition that things were not going be resolved so easily, and that Laura's chance encounter with Ash Randolf was going to cause trouble for everyone involved, including herself.

*** 

Back at the head table, Lupin smiled as he watched Celine talk animatedly with her housemates. "Lukas was a little worried about Celine at first, but she seems to be fitting in just fine," he said to Snape.

"Hufflepuff was a good House for her to be Sorted into," Snape observed, somewhat to Lupin's surprise, since he rarely praised any House but his own. "Slytherins might mock her impure blood and poverty, although probably less so than they would have done in the past, before they met you." Lupin smiled, gratified, and Snape gave him a brief smile in return, lips curving for only a few seconds, as if he didn't want to ruin his nasty Potions Master image. 

"On the other hand," he continued, "the Gryffindors might find her association with the Malfoys suspicious. I'm not sure about the Ravenclaws; they would probably reserve judgment until they had a chance to get to know her. Only the Hufflepuffs would immediately accept her wholeheartedly, just because she is one of them. So it is a good House for an almost-werewolf child to be Sorted into."

"Wolves are loyal to their pack, so it's natural that a child raised in a werewolf pack would be drawn to Hufflepuff," Lupin agreed. "I wouldn't be surprised if more of the pack children become Hufflepuffs when they go to Hogwarts."

Snape thought of the rambunctious pack children and said wryly, "Actually, that's probably a good thing; I think that I would prefer that they be Sorted into a House other than mine. One werewolf in my life is trouble enough, thank you very much." Lupin just laughed in response. "Although," Snape mused, "it will be interesting to see how Cedric Drake turns out. He might well be worthy of Slytherin if he takes after his parents."

"Well, we'll just have to wait and see," Lupin said. He pushed away his empty plate and noticed that Snape had finished eating as well. "Shall we retire for the evening, Severus?" he murmured. "If you're not busy, perhaps you could continue helping me with my...research."

"What, again?" Snape asked, feigning shock. "I already helped you with your 'research' all afternoon, Lupin."

Lupin smiled coyly and purred, "I appreciate your dedication, Severus, and I promise that I will make it worth your while."

"Well, in that case, I suppose I can help you out, Lupin," Snape said magnanimously. He rose from his seat and swept out of the Great Hall, his black robes billowing around him dramatically. Lupin paused for a moment just to admire him, then hastily followed after his lover.

"Are the Professors working on improvements to the Wolfsbane Potion or something?" Hagrid wondered out loud.

"Something like that," Blaise replied innocently, and only his long years of practice at controlling his emotions in Slytherin enabled him to restrain his laughter.

*** 

[I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut  
My weakness is that I care too much  
And my scars remind me that the past is real  
I tear my heart open just to feel  
\--"Scars" by Papa Roach]

Ash was at the London townhouse, helping set the table for dinner. Although many of the werewolves now resided at Diggory Manor with Lukas, not all of them felt comfortable living in what had once been a pureblood mansion, so some of them, Ash included, still lived at the townhouse. So did Matilda, the gray-haired matronly werewolf who had welcomed Ash into the pack as a child, and she still acted as den mother to the remaining werewolves. 

Brian and Kyra were also living at the townhouse, at least for now. They had moved into their own flat after they got married, but had been thrown out by their landlord during the period of hysteria caused by the fake werewolf attacks. After all the furor had subsided, they had discovered that their old flat had been rented out to someone else, and they had decided that they didn't want to live in a building run by a bigot, anyway. So they had decided to go back to the townhouse and save up enough money to buy a place of their own.

"Someplace a little bigger than our old flat," Kyra had said with a grin. "Someplace big enough for a cub or two to run around once we're ready to start a family." And Brian, who had once detested all the werewolves and the fact that he'd become one himself, smiled delightedly at the thought of having "cubs".

Ash was still feeling slightly out of sorts, and he was surprised to hear Tsubasa's voice calling from the fireplace, "Excuse me? Is it all right if I come in?"

"Of course!" Ash replied, lifting the wards that blocked the Floo so that Tsubasa could enter. He looked gorgeous, as always, and had obviously showered and changed: he had exchanged his sweaty clothes for a clean kimono and hakama (dark blue and light blue, respectively), and his long tail of hair looked slightly damp.

Ash felt his spirits lifting as Tsubasa stepped through the fireplace, brushing ashes off his clothes. He wondered hopefully if Tsubasa had changed his mind about both the dinner invitation and Ash's intentions, but his hopes faded when he saw the solemn expression on Tsubasa's face.

"I need to talk to you, Ash," Tsubasa said.

"Well then, you're welcome to have dinner with us," Matilda said pleasantly. "It'll be ready in about ten minutes."

"Thank you," Tsubasa replied politely, "but I need to speak with Ash in private."

"Then you can have a chat with Ash and join us afterwards," Matilda said cheerfully.

"Um...we can talk in my room," Ash said awkwardly. The other werewolves grinned and winked at him as he led Tsubasa up the stairs, but somehow Ash didn't think that his visitor had romance on his mind.

"What is it?" Ash asked, a bit more abruptly than he'd intended, once they were alone in his room with the door shut behind them. In such close quarters, Ash could pick up a faint, clean, soapy scent rising from Tsubasa's body, and the mental image of Tsubasa taking a shower aroused Ash, which in turn made him irritable, because he couldn't do anything about it.

Tsubasa did not seem to take offense, but merely reached into the folds of his kimono and pulled out an envelope. "One of my students asked me to deliver a letter to you," he said.

"But I don't know any of the students at Hogwarts except for Celine," Ash replied, frowning as he took the letter from Tsubasa. "And those kids who worked for Sirius over the summer, although I don't know why they would be writing to me."

"It's from a Hufflepuff student, a fifth-year girl named Laura Madley," Tsubasa said, carefully watching for Ash's reaction. The werewolf turned pale, and he seemed to freeze in place, more like a frightened deer than a wolf, his eyes going wide with shock. 

He waited a moment for Ash to reply, but when he didn't, Tsubasa continued, "She's the girl you ran into when you left my classroom, and she seemed to recognize you. She wouldn't elaborate much, but she seemed to think that you resembled some long-lost family member who was believed to be dead. She asked me to give you this letter, and she wants to meet you, if you are the relative she believes you to be."

With trembling hands, Ash tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter inside. In his state of shock, it was too much for him to grasp at once, but key phrases seemed to swim before his eyes: "My name is Laura...my parents are Alden and Rosalind Madley...never knew that I had a brother...killed by a werewolf...found a photo in a book of fairy tales in the attic..."

Finally, Ash shook his head and forced himself to focus, and he was able to concentrate hard enough to finish reading the letter, which closed with, "If you are Ethan, please contact me. For so many years I have wished that I could have known you! Mother and Father have missed you so much. It won't matter to them that you are a werewolf, if that's what you're afraid of; I know they will be overjoyed just to learn that you're alive. Please come home to us. Sincerely, Laura Madley."

Ash didn't realize that his entire body was trembling violently until Tsubasa placed a hand on his shoulder and asked in a concerned voice, "Are you all right, Ash?"

"No," Ash replied with a mirthless laugh, sitting down on the bed because he didn't think that his shaking legs would support him; Tsubasa sat next to him, still looking concerned. "She says that she's my sister," Ash said, crumpling the letter in his hand. "But that's impossible. My parents couldn't have children."

"They had you," Tsubasa pointed out logically. It did not escape his notice that although Ash claimed that Laura could not be his sister, he had just admitted that he was the Madleys' son.

Ash shook his head. "This Laura's father isn't my real father. He was my stepfather." And even though Ash had only known Tsubasa for a matter of weeks, not years, he found himself confessing the entire story of his past to the crane man--his illegitimate birth, his mother's marriage to Alden Madley, his stepfather's abuse which had driven him into the woods where he had been attacked by the werewolf that turned him--when he had never told it to any of his pack brothers and sisters. 

He had told just a little of this to Lukas, his pack leader whom he loved and trusted more than anyone else in the world, but even then, he had not told him the full story, only the bare facts--that his stepfather's abuse had indirectly caused him to be turned, and that he had run away for fear that his stepfather would lock him up or turn him over to the Ministry. And yet somehow it felt perfectly natural to share all these painful, personal details of his life with Tsubasa. Maybe this was because Tsubasa was meant to be his mate, or maybe it was only that he had been keeping these secrets locked up inside him for too long and they needed to spill out, like water rushing from a broken dam, and Tsubasa conveniently happened to be around when the dam broke.

As for Tsubasa, he felt his heart breaking for the young boy Ash had been, as the werewolf recounted his tale in a low, halting voice just above a whisper. It was difficult to picture the cynical, wary man beside him as the little boy in the story, so hungry for affection and desperately eager to please his stepfather, but he knew from the pain in Ash's eyes and in his voice that he was telling the truth. 

And somehow it felt perfectly natural to put his arm around Ash and draw his head down onto his own shoulder in an attempt to comfort him--a gesture that he would normally have performed only for a family member or a very close friend...or a lover. Except that all of Tsubasa's lovers had been casual ones, and he had never felt close enough to any of them to have comforted them this way.

Ash sighed, his body relaxing as it leaned into Tsubasa's, his head pillowed comfortably on Tsubasa's shoulder. He felt a hand touch his hair gently, tentatively stroking it, and Ash growled softly in pleasure, inhaling deeply and drinking in Tsubasa's scent.

Tsubasa knew that Ash had granted him an incredible gift of trust by telling him this story about his past, and Tsubasa felt obliged to return that gift with one of his own. It was a story of his own past that he never spoke of with anyone besides his father and stepmother, although it was not as tragic as Ash's.

"My mother was one of the most beautiful maidens in the valley of the crane folk," Tsubasa said, without any preamble, and Ash looked up at him curiously, although he did not lift his head from Tsubasa's shoulder. "She was named 'Aki' or 'autumn' because she was born in that season. She and my father Yokuto had loved each other since they were children, and they were wed as soon as they came of age. 

"As well as being beautiful, Aki was also one of the finest weavers in the valley, and she could have become the chief apprentice and successor to the Head Weaver. But Aki's spirit was restless, like the autumn leaves blowing in the wind, and she wanted to travel and see the world outside the valley, going wherever the wind might take her. Yokuto would have been content to spend his entire life in the valley, but because he loved my mother and wanted to make her happy, he willingly accompanied her on her travels. They continued to travel after I was born, taking me along with them. We traveled all over Japan, even staying in Muggle cities at times, but my mother loved the ocean most of all. She was entranced by the waves, so wild and unpredictable compared to the placid lake in the valley. We spent many happy days on various seashores, swimming and fishing and searching for seashells.

"But when I was five years old, my mother caught a rare illness that none of the healers could cure. The crane folk mate for life, and my parents were especially close even for cranes, and my father went mad with grief after my mother died. Her body was cremated, as is our custom, and by our traditions, her ashes should have been scattered in the wind to fly free in the valley. But my father insisted that he would scatter her ashes in the sea that she loved, so the clan let him go, believing that it would give him some comfort.

"They didn't know that he intended to do more than scatter her ashes. After he let the waves carry her ashes away, he picked me up and began walking into the water. He was smiling, for the first time since my mother died, but I was frightened by the strange look in his eyes--as if he were looking far away to someplace that I couldn't see. 'Don't worry, Tsubasa,' he told me. 'We'll be with Mother soon.'

"I was too young to understand what he meant, and at first I was confused but happy to know that I would see my mother again. I thought perhaps there had been a mistake, and she hadn't died after all. But he strode farther and farther into the water, until it reached his waist, and then mine, and soon our heads were just barely above water, and I finally understood that he meant to drown us both. I remember how cold the water was as it soaked through my clothes, and I remember feeling a little guilty when I realized that I didn't want to die, not even if it meant I could see my mother in heaven. I began to struggle and cry, but my father didn't seem to notice. He just kept smiling, with that faraway look in his eyes, and whispered, 'Soon we'll be with you, Aki, and we will all live together in the Dragon King's Palace under the sea.' There's an old Japanese legend, you see, that says that the Dragon King lives in a magnificent palace on the ocean floor.

"By coincidence--or fate, depending on your point of view--a young Japanese-American witch named Reiko happened to be visiting relatives who lived near the seashore where my father had decided to drown himself. She had recently graduated from Salem, and had come to Japan for her apprenticeship, to learn more about the Eastern ways of magic. On this day, she had decided to go for a stroll on the beach, and caught sight of me struggling in my father's arms, and she realized what he intended to do."

In spite of the painful emotions that his story had stirred up, Tsubasa found himself smiling at the memory of his young stepmother-to-be, as he remembered how fierce and determined she had been. "Without hesitation, the young woman--little more than a girl, really; she had only just turned eighteen--dove into the water, swam out to us, and tried to physically drag my father to shore, for all that he was at least half a foot taller than her and a good many pounds heavier. My father struggled, of course, crying out to her to let him die and go to his dead wife's side. Reiko slapped him in the face and shouted, 'Do you really think it would make your wife happy if you killed yourself and your son?! If it were just you, I would let you die, you selfish man, but I won't let you take the boy with you! And I won't let you die, because he needs his father, even if that father is an idiot!'

"And then my father looked at me--really looked at me this time--and saw how frightened I was, and he wept and begged me to forgive him. Reiko told him that he could cry all he wanted after we got back to shore, but he'd better start swimming. Only my father was very weak, since he had barely eaten or slept since my mother fell ill, and Reiko ended up doing most of the work of towing us back to shore. Once we were safely on the beach, she gave my father a blistering lecture about how stupid and selfish he was, and he got down on his hands and knees and bowed his head to the ground in apology, to both Reiko and me--and my late mother.

"We were all soaked to the skin, of course, so Reiko took us back to her uncle's house where she was staying to dry off. But even after he changed into dry clothing, my father was feverish and shivering; in his weakened state, in the cold water, he had caught pneumonia. I got a little sick too, although it was nothing more than a cold. So we ended up staying with Reiko and her uncle and his family while my father recovered, and she nursed him back to health, brewing healing potions and teas for him. She said that it was probably best that she kept an eye on him, anyway, to make sure that he didn't try anything foolish again. And because my father was too ill to look after me, she ended up taking care of me, too. She was the one who fed me, and told me stories and took me for walks on the beach to distract me from my worries about my father. She was the one who tucked me into bed at night, and sang me lullabies when I had trouble sleeping.

"And gradually, my father began to heal--emotionally as well as physically. At first he only clung to life because Reiko had made him realize that I still needed him, but little by little, he began to take pleasure in life again. He had been dutifully eating his meals without really tasting them, and I remember the first time that remarked on how good Reiko's soup tasted, sounding a little surprised that it should be so, and he did not quite laugh, but he smiled when Reiko pretended to be offended that he was surprised that her cooking tasted good. I remember how he truly smiled at me for the first time since my mother died, when I brought him back a seashell from one of my walks with Reiko. And I remember how he both smiled and wept when the leaves turned red in autumn, reminding him of my mother. I remember being worried, but Reiko gently told me that it was a good sign, that they were tears of healing.

"My father recovered from his pneumonia, but he did not really want to return home to the valley, which held too many painful memories of my mother. So we remained as guests in the home of Reiko's family, and my father wove them bolts of precious silk to thank them for their kindness and hospitality. Some of the silk they kept to make into kimonos for themselves, and some they sold, which more than covered the cost of our upkeep, but they were kind people and would have taken us in even if we had been penniless.

"Weeks passed, and then months, until we had been living with Reiko and her family for over a year. During this time, Reiko and my father had become friends, and gradually friendship turned into something more. And then one day Reiko and my father sat down to have a talk with me, both of them looking happy but very anxious at the same time, and they asked me how I would feel if they got married. By this time, Reiko was a surrogate mother to me in all but name, and I adored her, so of course I was overjoyed, and I told them so.

"My father's kinfolk were not entirely happy about this. They were grateful to Reiko for saving my father's life, and they could even forgive her for being human. But what they could not forgive was that she took me and my father back to America with her after they married. Despite his newfound happiness, my father was still very fragile, and Reiko could see how much the memory of my mother's death still pained him. So she thought it would be better if he made a fresh start somewhere new, without so many painful reminders of his past. My stepmother was truly a remarkable young woman, wise beyond her years. She never begrudged my father his love for Aki, but she knew that he needed time to heal before he could remember her with joy instead of sorrow. She also told me that she would be a mother to me, but that she would never try to take my mother's place in my heart. We agreed that I would call her 'Mom,' the American term, so that my mother would always be 'Okaasan' to me. That way I had a special name for each of them, and I didn't have to feel as though Reiko was displacing my mother.

"So over the protests of the clan, we moved to America, and I attended school at Salem. By the time I graduated, my father had healed from his grief and had begun to miss his homeland, so we moved back to Japan. Because he had grown used to living with humans, the clan appointed him as their representative to the wizards' council in Japan. Some of the clan elders still disapprove of my stepmother, but she takes great pleasure in annoying them, so everyone--except the elders--is happy." He paused, then added, "Only those of the clan who were adults at the time know the true story behind my father's second marriage. The younger ones, including my cousin Takeshi who was not yet born when my mother died, know that Reiko saved him, but they think that she only saved him from pining away with grief. They don't know that he tried to commit suicide and take me with him."

Tsubasa fell silent, his story apparently finished, and Ash raised his head from Tsubasa's shoulder and whispered, "Thank you." He understood the gift of trust implicit in Tsubasa's story, and he knew what must have motivated it. Feeling deeply touched, he said, "You didn't have to do that."

"But I wanted to," Tsubasa replied, and he was a little surprised to find that it was true. It felt good to share this secret with someone, as if he had been freed of a burden that he hadn't realized was weighing him down--which was strange, because the emotional wounds of his childhood had long ago healed, and he and his father and Reiko had been a close-knit and loving family for many years. Stranger still was the fact that it felt natural to share this secret with Ash, whom he had known for such a short time, when he had never told it to his cousins Ichiro and Takeshi, whom he had always loved like brothers.

"Your father..." Ash said hesitantly. "Was it hard for you to forgive him for what he did?"

Tsubasa shook his head. "I was very young at the time, and I wasn't thinking so much about what he had almost done to me. Mostly I was just afraid that I might lose my father--if not to suicide, then to the pneumonia--as well as my mother, and then I would be all alone. When I was older...I couldn't hate him for it; he wasn't in his right mind, and I understood why he did it. If we were human, perhaps it would be different, but the bond between mated cranes runs very deep. We always mate for life; mated couples never fall out of love or develop a desire for another. 

"No one knows why this is so, although some of the human wizards think it might be a biological imperative, some sort of genetic trait. The crane folk do not ask why; they accept that it has always been so, since our race was first born, and they simply call it destiny. It is a great gift, to share such a complete and joyous union with another soul, but in a way, it is also a curse, because if one mate dies before the other, the surviving partner is overwhelmed by such grief that they often die of it. It is as if half of your soul was suddenly ripped away from you. Most often they slowly pine away, but sometimes they commit suicide. A parent will usually find the strength to go on for their child's sake. Some cannot bear the pain, but it is customary to place the child in the care of family members before committing suicide."

"You have rules for that?!" Ash exclaimed.

"We have rules for everything," Tsubasa replied, smiling wryly. "I am not very good at following most of them, which is why I do not live in the valley."

Ash shook his head in astonishment, then sighed. "The purebloods in Britain have a lot of rules, too, but I don't think they have any rules about suicide." He added bitterly, "They're too selfish to kill themselves, although they don't mind hurting other people. That's all I know about my real father, that he was a pureblood who thought he was too good to marry my mother. I don't even know his name." 

He laughed, a sound that came out sounding like a short, harsh bark. "I would have been content to be Madley's son, even though he wasn't a pureblood. All I cared about was that he was kind to me. I knew all along that he didn't really love me, that he was just trying to please Rosalind, but I didn't care; the pretense was enough for me. That's pretty pathetic, isn't it? And the irony of it all is that if Laura had been born just a few years earlier, then none of this would have happened. If he'd had a child of his own, then maybe he wouldn't have hated me so much. I wouldn't have run away, and I wouldn't have been turned into a werewolf, and we could have gone on pretending to be a happy family."

"But it would only have been a pretense," Tsubasa said gently. "And you would never have met Lukas and the rest of your pack, people who truly love you." He was still sitting close enough to Ash to feel the werewolf tremble slightly. "Blood ties are important, but sometimes family is something more than blood. Reiko is my mother in every way that matters, even though we share no ties of blood."

"I know that," Ash whispered, still trembling. "When I found my pack, I decided that they were the only family I needed. I never wanted to see my real...no, the pack IS my real family. I never wanted to see my biological family again. None of them ever wanted me, anyway. I never thought I would ever hear from them again. I don't know what to do. I don't want to see this girl. I just want to forget that the Madleys and the Parkers ever existed."

By now, Ash's body was shaking violently, and Tsubasa felt out of his depth; his friend clearly needed more comfort than a shoulder to rest on. He thought that Ash's pack, his true family, would be best equipped to help him, and he started to rise to his feet, asking, "Are you all right? Should I get someone...maybe Matilda, or Kyra...?"

Ash was suddenly filled with an irrational, frantic terror of being left alone, and he reached out and grabbed Tsubasa's arm, clutching at it so hard that the other man winced. Ash loosened his grip slightly and said, "No, please...don't leave." He didn't want to be alone, not even for the few minutes that it would take for Tsubasa to go downstairs and summon help. And then he realized that as much as he loved his pack brothers and sisters, he didn't really feel like explaining the long story of his childhood to them right now. No, it was more than that...he didn't want them at his side at this moment; he wanted Tsubasa.

"All right," Tsubasa said in a soft, soothing voice, dropping back down onto the bed. "It's all right, Ash; I'm here." He hesitated, silently debating with himself for a moment, then made his decision. He reached out to cup Ash's face in his free hand, and leaned forward and very slowly and deliberately kissed him. 

It was the sweetest, most perfect kiss he had ever experienced, as easy and natural as breathing--or flying, perhaps, was a more apt comparison. He felt a sense of joy and exhilaration that was similar to soaring through the sky in his crane form, borne aloft on the wind currents. Ash was still for a few seconds, not so much unresponsive as stunned, as if he couldn't believe that this was happening, and then he returned the kiss, very hesitantly at first, then with growing hunger and intensity, until his tongue was pushing its way between Tsubasa's lips. Their tongues darted around each other, stroking and entwining as their mouths remained pressed together until they finally ran out of breath and had to pull apart, gasping and panting as they took in gulps of air.

"But...I thought...you said you wouldn't...not until I answered your question," Ash said breathlessly, and not quite coherently, although Tsubasa understood what he meant.

"Just this once, I will make an exception," Tsubasa replied, just as breathlessly. "Just for tonight, I will gaze at the stars with you. Let us share pleasure for this one night, with no obligations or demands placed on each other." A small part of him wondered whether he was really doing this to comfort Ash, or if it was just a convenient excuse to satisfy his own desires. Right at this moment, he wanted Ash so badly that it was difficult to think clearly.

He stroked Ash's hair, pushing it back from his face, then gently traced the long scar on Ash's left cheek with his fingers; the werewolf tensed, but did not object. Then Tsubasa tenderly kissed the scar, and Ash shivered--a shiver of pleasure, Tsubasa thought, although Ash's body was still tense, as if not entirely comfortable. He knew that Ash was self-conscious about the scar, and Tsubasa felt inordinately pleased that Ash permitted him to touch it, a privilege that he suspected the werewolf didn't grant to many people.

Ash moaned, shivering with mingled pleasure and shame as Tsubasa's tongue ran lightly down the length of his scar. He had always been secretly ashamed of his disfigurement, and he hated having attention drawn to his scar, but at the same time it felt amazingly good to feel Tsubasa's hands and mouth caressing it. He allowed Tsubasa to continue for a minute or two, then turned his head and claimed Tsubasa's mouth with his own, kissing him hard.

Tsubasa did not protest, and indeed, enthusiastically returned the kiss, moaning into Ash's mouth. And Ash did what he'd been wanting to do for weeks, ever since he'd first met Tsubasa, which was to reach up and loosen the cord that tied Tsubasa's hair back, letting it spill into his hands as he ran his fingers through the long, glossy black hair that spilled down to the swordsman's waist. It felt incredible, even better than Ash had imagined, like running his fingers through strands of pure, finely-spun silk.

He had thought that Tsubasa's clothes would be easy to remove--after all, they had no buttons or hooks or zippers, only straps of cloth to tie them in place. He had fantasized about it many times, but in this case, the reality was less satisfying. He cursed under his breath as he struggled with the ties of Tsubasa's hakama, which were wrapped around his waist in a more complicated arrangement than he had realized, crisscrossing over and under each other, not to mention that the knots were also tied more tightly than they'd been in his daydreams. 

"Let me do it," Tsubasa laughed. He made a brief gesture with his hand, and the ties of his hakama unknotted and unwrapped themselves, and the garment slid down over his hips.

"Very impressive," Ash said with a grin. "Maybe you could teach me that spell."

Tsubasa laughed again. "Unfortunately I can't, since it's part of the Weaving magic unique to my people. We can easily manipulate cloth and thread--I could, for example, magically mend a rip or tear." Ash was wearing one of his comfortable, shabby old robes, and Tsubasa ran his finger over an inexpertly darned patch, and the crude stitches vanished, the patch melting into the original garment seamlessly. Then he ran his hand down Ash's chest and said, "Or I could, if I wished, make your clothes fall apart at the seams. But I trust that won't be necessary?"

Ash answered him with another kiss. The sash on Tsubasa's kimono came off with much more ease, with no need for magic, and with nothing else holding it in place, the loose robe fell open and was easily pushed back over his shoulders, leaving him clad in only a very ordinary pair of underpants that looked incongruous in combination with his more exotic outer clothing. But that too, was easily removed and discarded, leaving Tsubasa completely nude, and Ash's breath caught in his throat as he just stared at Tsubasa for a moment, spellbound. 

"Now it's your turn, my handsome wolf," Tsubasa whispered huskily, and his hands reached up to undo the buttons on Ash's robe. But Ash remembered all the other scars that lay beneath his clothing, and was suddenly self-conscious again. He grabbed Tsubasa's wrists, halting his progress.

"What's wrong?" Tsubasa asked softly.

"Let's turn out the lights," Ash mumbled, looking down and not meeting his gaze.

"But you've seen me," Tsubasa pointed out in a playful voice. "I want to see you."

"It's just..." Ash flushed, his eyes still downcast. "...I have a lot more scars than this one." He touched the scar on his face. "And I...I don't want you to see..."

"That's nothing to be ashamed of," Tsubasa said gently. "I have scars, too, see?" He took Ash's hand and placed it on his side, just below a long, thin white scar across his ribs, just barely visible against the white of his skin. "I got that in sword practice. And here..." He moved Ash's hand lower, down onto his thigh where there was an uneven, blotch-shaped scar about the size of a Galleon in diameter. "This was from a spell blast from a Dark Wizard. That was careless of me; I should have been able to avoid it." 

In response to Ash's startled look, Tsubasa said, "Oh yes, we do have Dark Wizards in Japan, too. Some of the humans believe that the tengu have hidden stores of magical treasures, and a few of them are foolish enough to attempt raids on the tengu villages from time to time. A strong enough healing spell or potion would have healed these wounds without a scar, but the tengu consider their battle scars to be badges of honor, so they keep their scars and wear them with pride." He kissed Ash lightly on the mouth. "So wear your scars with pride, too, Ash."

"But they aren't battle scars," Ash protested in a subdued voice.

"But in a sense, they are," Tsubasa replied. "They're proof that you were able to survive your childhood. A weaker person might have died, or might have lived, but with their spirit broken. You were strong enough not to let the past break you, Ash, and I admire you for that. I would never scorn you for your scars. So let me see you, Ash--let me see all of you."

Still blushing self-consciously, Ash finished undressing, then found himself trembling as Tsubasa very tenderly and methodically began kissing each of his scars. Tsubasa pressed his lips to an old burn mark just below Ash's nipple, then flicked his tongue across the nipple, and Ash had the fleeting, traitorous thought that Takeshi had done the exact same thing the time that they had made love. But then Tsubasa kissed him, and Ash wrapped his arms around the crane man and pulled him closer, and all his attention focused once more on the man currently sharing his bed. 

He ran his hands along Tsubasa's body, stroking his back and thighs, marveling at how smooth his skin was. Ash almost felt as if he shouldn't be touching something so fine and smooth and perfect with his work-roughened hands. During the long years that they had lived in poverty, Ash and some of the other werewolves had often taken odd jobs in the Muggle world when there had been no work for them in the wizarding world, heavy manual labor that had left Ash's fingers slightly calloused--rather like the pads of a dog's paws, ironically enough.

But when his hands stopped moving, hovering uncertainly above his lover's body, Tsubasa moaned, "Don't stop!" Reassured, Ash resumed his caresses, his hands growing bolder as Tsubasa moaned again and kissed him hungrily. Ash stroked the scar across Tsubasa's ribs, then let his hands move across Tsubasa's chest, his thumbs lightly rubbing and circling Tsubasa's nipples. Tsubasa gasped, breaking off their kiss, and Ash lowered his head to lick and nibble and suck at Tsubasa's nipples, as he had fantasized about doing earlier today after their fencing lesson.

Ash growled, his inner wolf stirring, and he pressed one of his legs between Tsubasa's as he continued licking and nibbling. The wolf's excitement caused Ash to nip a little harder at one nipple than he'd intended, and Tsubasa let out a yelp of pain. Ash started to pull away guiltily, but then he felt something hard pressing against his thigh, and he realized that the bite had aroused his lover.

"Did you like that?" he asked, grinning wolfishly, and Tsubasa's face turned bright red, but he nodded. Ash nipped playfully at Tsubasa's chest, provoking another yelp and a slight twitch against his thigh. Growling deep in his throat, Ash continued planting little love-bites all over Tsubasa's chest, gently at first and then with more force as Tsubasa moaned and writhed beneath him, rubbing against his thigh with increasing urgency. The sight of bruises forming on Tsubasa's pale skin and marring his perfect beauty appalled Ash, but at the same time it excited him further, and he growled, baring his teeth as he pushed Tsubasa's legs apart...

As a teenager, Tsubasa had "played at love" with some of his clanmates (the crane euphemism for the casual experimentation of the young before they settled on a lifemate), and as an adult, he had taken several casual lovers among the tengu. The tengu had a rather bawdy, down-to-earth approach to sex, regarding it as a physical activity to be enjoyed to the fullest, much the same way that they approached eating, drinking, dancing, and fighting. 

But while lovemaking with his tengu partners had been quite athletic and even exhausting at times, it had never been violent--the tengu saved that for the battlefield. And while the occasional hickey or playful little nip was fine, Tsubasa had never found pleasure in pain before. But each time that Ash's teeth bit into his flesh, Tsubasa felt a sharp flare of pain that somehow turned into pleasure as it raced towards his groin, as if his nerve endings had misfired or gotten scrambled somehow.

Ash raised his head and growled, baring his sharp teeth, his eyes glittering ferally, looking more animal than human. Tsubasa found it a little alarming and yet strangely erotic, and he didn't protest as Ash pushed his legs open and began planting sharp little bites up and down the insides of his thighs. Tsubasa moaned wildly, his fingers reaching down to tangle themselves in Ash's hair, urging him on, each bite sending another surge of pleasure/pain through his body. The more Tsubasa moaned, the harder Ash bit, and the pleasure seemed to increase exponentially with the pain, until Tsubasa was nearly frenzied with desire, his fingers pulling at Ash's hair so tightly that it must have hurt, but the werewolf didn't seem to notice. Or perhaps the pain felt good to him, too.

Ash seemed to be deliberately concentrating on Tsubasa's thighs, ignoring his aching erection although his hair brushed against it, lightly and teasingly, when Ash's love-bites moved higher up his thigh, closer to his crotch. "Please," Tsubasa groaned, wondering if this was payback for the way he had teased Ash after the lesson--it really was a bad idea to tease a werewolf! 

Ash's inner wolf regarded the bruises on Tsubasa's thighs with a kind of possessive satisfaction, while the human part of him was a little frightened by how hard he was biting Tsubasa and the fact that he couldn't seem to stop himself. It just felt so good to sink his teeth into that soft flesh, to hear Tsubasa moan, to watch the white skin begin to turn red and purple with the imprint of his teeth. At least he wasn't biting hard enough to draw blood, and Tsubasa certainly didn't seem to mind; his fingers wound themselves into Ash's hair, pressing down on his head, pulling him closer, not trying to push him away.

Overwhelmed by the wolf's instincts and his own pleasure, Ash was only dimly aware of the sound of Tsubasa's voice pleading with him. And then the shapeshifter suddenly spread his legs apart even wider and raised his hips, his eyes silently imploring Ash to enter him.

Ash found himself lunging for the nightstand drawer so fast that he nearly fell off the bed. But he managed to grab the headboard and keep his balance, and fumbled in the drawer for a tube of lubricant with his free hand.

For some reason, Tsubasa felt slightly annoyed that Ash had the tube so ready at hand. Had he been planning, or at least hoping, that Tsubasa would be sharing this bed with him in the near future, or had it been there for the benefit of his previous lovers? The younger werewolves, who loved to gossip, had informed him that Ash had been something of a playboy in the past. Tsubasa realized with a start that he was jealous of those past lovers, even his beloved cousin Takeshi, and was seized with the brief desire to slap his young cousin for being so dense that he didn't even know that he had broken Ash's heart. Not that Ash had said so, precisely, but he instinctively sensed that Ash's feelings had run deeper than he was willing to admit.

But those thoughts suddenly slipped out of his mind when he felt two of Ash's fingers pushing into him, a bit more roughly than he would normally like, but he was so eager to have Ash inside him, and his body still so afire with those mingled pleasure/pain sensations, that he didn't care. He moaned, raising his hips to meet those questing fingers, enjoying the sensation of them stroking and thrusting inside him. Ash's mouth crushed against his in a bruising kiss, and then his teeth nipped at Tsubasa's lower lip, evoking another exquisite little flare of pain that caused an echoing throb of heat in his loins. Ash's fingers scissored apart, stretching Tsubasa open wider, and he cried out, his body arching up off the bed with a jerk as he felt a third finger join the first two.

Tsubasa felt Ash's palm against his belly, gently but firmly pushing him back down onto the bed. "Are you ready?" Ash growled, his hazel eyes practically glowing with a feral, wolfish hunger.

"Yes," Tsubasa moaned. He had never been readier in his life. In the past, sex had merely been a pleasurable physical sensation to be enjoyed; he had never before experienced this kind of frantic, overpowering need, as if he would die if Ash didn't enter him. He would have been frightened out of his wits, except that his need and lust left no room in his head for rational thought at the moment.

Ash's favorite position, as he had once jokingly told Takeshi, was doggy-style, but with Tsubasa lying beneath him, his legs splayed apart wantonly and his eyes frantic with lust, Ash knew that he wanted to make love to Tsubasa face-to-face. He wanted to see the pleasure in Tsubasa's face, the need in his eyes, the flush in his cheeks, and his lips parting to form an eager moan. He wanted to see how much Tsubasa wanted him. Kneeling between Tsubasa's legs, he positioned himself and entered his lover with a swift, hard thrust.

Tsubasa cried out as Ash thrust into him; there was a little pain, but mostly pleasure, and in any case, he could no longer really distinguish the difference between the two. What happened between them was not so much lovemaking as it was the primal coupling of two animals in heat. Ash thrust down into him, and Tsubasa arched up eagerly to meet him, but their coupling was awkward at first, with both of them so frantic with need that it took a couple of minutes for their bodies to fall into sync. And then it was good, so good, to feel Ash moving in and out of his body at a steady rhythm, but it still wasn't enough. Tsubasa moaned, and without thinking, raked his nails down Ash's back.

Ash gasped, his back arching, and his eyes went wide with surprise and then lit up with a fierce, feral hunger. He snarled eagerly and then began pounding into Tsubasa even harder and faster, as Tsubasa sobbed with pleasure, wrapping his legs tightly around Ash's waist and clawing at his back, digging his nails hard into Ash's skin to drive him on.

Sharp lines of pain raced down Ash's back where Tsubasa's nails clawed at him, but it only served to further stoke the heat of his lust as drove into Tsubasa at a frenzied pace. Merlin, it felt so good to feel Tsubasa's legs locked around his waist, to finally feel himself buried deep inside his lover's body, even better than he'd imagined it would be--and he had imagined it many times since he had met Tsubasa. He had spent more than one night alone in his bed, thrusting into his own hand as he pictured Tsubasa beneath him, and the orgasms resulting from his fantasies had somehow been more intense than the ones he'd had during his casual affairs with his werewolf friends. But the fantasies turned out to be a mere shadow compared to the reality of actually making love to Tsubasa.

Part of it was that Tsubasa's pleasure enhanced his own; it excited Ash to no end to know that it was him who was making Tsubasa moan and claw at his back, to know that he was the one who had put that look of desire in Tsubasa's eyes. The way that Tsubasa's hips eagerly pushed up to meet each thrust, the hardness rubbing against his belly as he leaned down to kiss Tsubasa and press their bodies closer together--it was all proof that Tsubasa wanted him as much as he wanted Tsubasa. And that was just as satisfying as the actual physical pleasure.

Tsubasa bit at Ash's lip as the werewolf kissed him, and heard Ash growl in response--not an angry or threatening growl, but a growl of pleasure. Tsubasa was not quite sure how he knew the difference, but he did, and the sound sent a shiver of excitement running down his spine. He gasped and panted, sounding not unlike a wolf himself as his hips rocked against Ash's. He was close, so close to coming...and yet climax remained tantalizingly, infuriatingly just a hairsbreadth out of reach. He threw back his head, moaning in frustration, and then he saw Ash's eyes gleam, and without warning, the werewolf snarled and sank his teeth into Tsubasa's throat.

Tsubasa had only a fraction of a second to register fear and surprise, and then the intense pain in his throat sent him over the edge, and he cried out as his body convulsed in the most incredible orgasm he'd ever had. All the thoughts in his mind--already vague and half-formed due to that overwhelming lust--shattered completely, breaking into a million little pieces that scattered and blew away like a handful of dust, leaving him conscious of nothing but the intense wave of pleasure wracking his body.

Ash felt Tsubasa come, semen spilling across his stomach and chest as Tsubasa's inner muscles clenched around him in little spasms that milked his own climax from him, and he threw back his head and the wolf howled in triumph.

Ash was not really sure how long it took for the wolf to retreat and for full consciousness to return to him, but eventually he became aware that he was lying next to a trembling Tsubasa; it took him another moment to realize that he was trembling also. He began to shake even harder when he saw the bruise on Tsubasa's throat and the full implications of what he had done began to hit him.

"I'm sorry," Ash whispered, reaching up with trembling fingers to very lightly touch Tsubasa's throat. "I've never done that before, not to anyone." The other bruises he had left on the beautiful shapeshifter's body disturbed him also, but the one on his throat most of all, because that was the way that a werewolf claimed its mate. But that should make him happy, because he wanted Tsubasa to be his mate...didn't he? He nervously brushed off that thought, telling himself that he was worried that he had hurt Tsubasa.

But Tsubasa smiled at him and said, "I'm all right," although he looked a little shaken, too. "It just took me by surprise because I wasn't expecting it, but it was very...ah...intense." When Ash still looked anxious, he added, "In a good way."

"I'm glad," Ash said, kissing his throat in apology. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I just got...um...a little carried away."

"I'm fine," Tsubasa said, kissing him lightly; Ash was vaguely aware that his lip still stung slightly where Tsubasa had bitten him. "I've received far worse bruises in my training with the tengu." Ash felt a sudden surge of jealously and suspicion that must have shown on his face, because Tsubasa smiled and said, "Not quite the same sorts of bruises, of course, nor in quite the same places."

"Ah...of course," Ash said, blushing. He wrapped an arm around Tsubasa, and his lover moved closer, resting his head on Ash's chest. _What the hell is wrong with me?_ Ash wondered as he lay there, torn between the conflicting desires to cradle Tsubasa in his arms, and alternately, to jump out of bed and run as far and fast as he could. Kyra had once sarcastically told him that he was allergic to commitment, and he had laughed it off at the time, but maybe she had been right.

Tsubasa felt Ash tense, and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," the werewolf replied, then sighed. "Everything. I don't know what to do about this girl."

"Well, if you are asking my advice..." Tsubasa raised an eyebrow in inquiry, and Ash hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "I think that you should meet her." Ash frowned, looking as though he wanted to protest, and Tsubasa continued, "I'm not saying that you should forgive your parents, but Laura has never done anything to hurt you. She is your sister, after all, and she seems like a kind person." He recalled that she was the only one who had voiced concern about the house-elves in his class when Owen had mocked Hermione Granger's efforts to help them. "Perhaps it might be possible to have a relationship with her even if you don't wish to have one with your mother and stepfather?"

"I don't want a relationship with her!" Ash snapped, sitting up in bed and pulling away from Tsubasa. "I have nothing against the girl--"

"Laura," Tsubasa reminded him.

"Nothing against Laura," Ash said sullenly, because he didn't want to be reminded of her name. He didn't want to have to think of her as a real person instead of just another faceless member of the Madley family. "But I have no desire to meet her. I don't want to think about my family. I don't want any reminders of them in my life."

"The bonds of blood are not so easy to break," Tsubasa said quietly.

"My family and the families of my packmates found them quite easy to break, I assure you," Ash said acidly. "What kind of relationship am I supposed to have with this girl, anyway? She clearly has an idealized view of her family. Do you really think she'll take kindly to being told that her dear Mummy is a shallow, social-climbing bitch who got knocked up by the first pureblood boy who would have her, or that Daddy is a controlling, abusive brute? I don't think she even realizes that I'm not her father's biological child, which means that either she doesn't know what year her parents got married, or she's too stupid to count, since it should be obvious that I was born more than five years before the wedding."

"No, of course I don't think that it will be news she wants to hear," Tsubasa sighed. "And I don't think that Miss Madley is stupid; she seems to be a clever student. Perhaps your parents lied to her about the date of their marriage. You asked for my advice, Ash, and my advice to you is to see her, if only to tell her that you don't want any further contact with her or her family. It's your decision, of course, and if you don't want to meet her, I'll tell her so, but I don't think she will accept it unless she hears it from you personally. She is, as you've noticed, rather idealistic, and I think that she'll continue to pursue you until she finds out why you don't want to see her. I've noticed that Hufflepuffs are sometimes mocked by the other Houses, but they can be quite tenacious when they put their minds to something, like the badger that is their House emblem." 

Ash groaned, and Tsubasa smiled at him sympathetically and put his arms around the werewolf comfortingly. He started to kiss Ash, but broke it off when Ash tensed up again, his body going rigid and unresponsive.

"What's wrong, Ash?" he asked quietly. "Besides Laura, I mean. This seems to be something to do more with you and me."

"I'm sorry," Ash said miserably. "I just...I don't think I can do this right now. You and me. Everything happened so fast, and this thing with that girl...with my sister...it's just too much to handle right now."

"I see," Tsubasa said, wondering why he felt so hurt. Wasn't he the one who had told Ash that this was just a single night of pleasure with no obligations binding them? Hadn't he told himself that he was merely comforting Ash? He was a little angry at Ash for pushing him away, but mostly he was angry at himself, because he was the one who had lied to himself. He'd known that he shouldn't sleep with Ash until he was certain that the werewolf was ready to be in a relationship, but he'd convinced himself that he could keep it casual, when he should have known from the intensity of his attraction to Ash that he couldn't.

"I understand," he said, carefully keeping his voice level and neutral. "You don't need to apologize. We agreed that it would be only one night with no strings attached." He climbed out of bed and began to get dressed.

Still looking guilty and anxious, Ash said hastily, "It's not that I don't want to be with you, Tsubasa. I just need to work out this thing with my sister before I can figure out anything else. Please..." His voice trailed off, as if he wasn't really sure what he was asking for, but his eyes stared at Tsubasa pleadingly.

He looked so unhappy and vulnerable that Tsubasa relented inwardly, his resentment dissipating. After the miserable childhood he'd had, it was little wonder that the werewolf should have trouble forming attachments to people. _Who am I to judge, anyway?_ Tsubasa thought with a bit of bitter humor. _I've never had a serious relationship in my life, either. I can't even get along with my own clan, outside of a few family members._

"I understand, Ash," Tsubasa said, in a more sincere voice this time. "It's all right. What do you want to do about Laura?"

"I don't know," Ash replied in a subdued voice. "I need some time to think it over."

"All right," Tsubasa said. "You can send me a message at Hogwarts when you make your decision. Or..." He hesitated. "You can just tell me at our next lesson."

The sudden look of hope in Ash's eyes gave Tsubasa a little hope, too. "You...still want to teach me?" Ash asked in a small voice, looking more like a puppy than a wolf at the moment--like a stray puppy in an alleyway staring hopefully at passersby, but without any real expectations that someone would pick him up and take him home.

That look was almost impossible to resist. "Yes, of course," Tsubasa replied gently, and he leaned down to kiss Ash. He wanted to kiss him on the mouth, but knew that he wouldn't be able to keep such a kiss brief and chaste, so he settled for brushing his lips against Ash's cheek, and even then, he let his lips linger a little longer than he had meant to.

Ash inhaled, drawing in a ragged breath, then released it with a sigh and said, "Thank you."

"I should get back to Hogwarts," Tsubasa said. "If you want to...well, I guess that's a bad choice of words. If you decide to meet with Laura, let me know, and I'll arrange it."

Ash thanked him again, still sounding subdued, and Tsubasa left the room and headed downstairs. The werewolves sitting around the dinner table all grinned at him knowingly, and Tsubasa felt his face turn red as he belatedly remembered that they had never bothered to put a silence spell up on the bedroom.

"It's lucky that the children are all at the mansion," Matilda said mildly as the other werewolves snickered, and Tsubasa felt his face turning even redder. 

"I'm sorry," Tsubasa mumbled, feeling like a chastised schoolboy caught doing something very naughty. He resolved to have more sympathy for his students from now on.

"Well, it's nice to see our Ash so taken with someone," Matilda replied, her eyes sparkling mischievously. "Will the two of you be joining us for dinner?"

The werewolves looked around, taking note of the fact that Ash was nowhere in sight. "Worn him out, have you?" Kyra asked with a grin and a wink.

"I...ah...have to return to Hogwarts," Tsubasa stammered. "I...I'm sure that Ash will...um...be down for dinner soon. Goodnight!"

"Come back anytime, dear," Matilda called after him as Tsubasa made his escape and fled through the Floo.

*** 

Meanwhile, up in his room, Ash groaned out loud, "I am so stupid!" After weeks of chasing Tsubasa, he had finally managed to get the crane man into his bed, and had then practically thrown him out of it. Tsubasa had said that he wasn't upset, but Ash was depressingly certain that he had screwed things up beyond mending.

What was wrong with him, anyway? He'd gotten a second chance with Tsubasa after being turned down the first time, and the sex had been great...and Ash finally realized what was bothering him so much. The sex had been great, all right--it had been _too_ great. He had never felt the desire to bite his partner in that claiming manner until he had slept with Takeshi, but even then, he had been able to control and stop himself, because he had known that Takeshi wasn't meant to be his mate. But with Tsubasa...

Ash had never before experienced such a complete loss of control, had never been so completely overwhelmed by the wolf except during his transformations before he'd started taking the Wolfsbane Potion. And that terrified him. Accepting that the wolf was a part of him was one thing, but it was another thing to surrender himself to it entirely, to give in to mindless rage--or lust. He wanted Tsubasa, could maybe even fall in love with him, but he didn't think that he could bear to lose himself so completely in another person if it was going to be like this every time they made love.

And yet...the thought of losing Tsubasa was equally unbearable, and he had been relieved when Tsubasa had offered to continue their lessons as if nothing had happened. Ash fervently wished that he could go back in time and start over again, take things more slowly this time. Maybe things would have turned out differently.

He had used it as an excuse, but maybe this fear he felt really was due to the letter from his sister. The thought of having to deal with his family made him feel like a wolf with its leg caught in a steel trap, so frantic and desperate that it would gnaw through its own leg to escape.

Actually, what he really wanted to do was crawl into a deep, dark cave and hide there until all his problems went away. So he settled for crawling under the covers, and refused to come out even when his packmates called him down to dinner.

*** 

Back at Hogwarts, Tsubasa stepped through the fireplace into his quarters. He was tired, sweaty, sticky, and his body ached, although there was an underlying feeling of pleasant satiation. He decided to shower and soak in a hot bath to soothe his aches, and perhaps ease his mental turmoil as well. He stripped off his clothes and headed for the bathroom, then paused when he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror--no wonder the other werewolves had grinned at him so knowingly!

They hadn't needed to hear his moans or Ash's howl to know that the two of them had been having sex. The mirror reflected his blush of mortification, as well as disheveled hair, a swollen lower lip, a large bruise spreading across his throat, and rings of mottled red-and-purple bite marks all over his chest and inner thighs. He looked like he'd been mauled by a wild animal, and he thought to himself with a smile of embarrassed amusement, that in a sense, he had been.

He was probably going to have to wear one of Ichiro's high-necked British-style robes tomorrow; a kimono would expose his bruised throat, and he could just imagine the students' reactions if their teacher showed up with a huge hickey on his neck. Humiliation aside, the Headmaster would not be amused--no, on the other hand, he might well be amused, but Deputy Headmistress McGonagall definitely would not.

He had a little mild bruise salve on hand, but he didn't think that it would completely erase the mark on his throat by tomorrow morning. He could ask Professor Snape or Madam Pomfrey for something stronger, of course, but he didn't really want to explain to them why he needed it. For the same reason, he didn't want to ask Takeshi, either; he didn't want to see his cousin grin knowingly the way the werewolves had, and he was in such a bad mood that he might actually give in to the temptation to slap his cousin, which he would no doubt regret later. And it would probably make Ash mad at him, too. Whether or not Ash was actually still in love with Takeshi, he was obviously very protective of him, which annoyed Tsubasa even more.

He supposed that he ought to apply the salve that he had on hand and just hope for the best, but as he stared at his reflection, he realized that he didn't really want to heal the marks Ash had left on him. He wanted to keep them as proof of...what, he wasn't exactly sure. The memory of their night together, perhaps, because it didn't look like he was going to get a chance to repeat the experience anytime soon. And although he ought to be too sated and exhausted to even contemplate the idea of a repetition right now, he found himself beginning to get aroused by the sight of his own bruises, his body shuddering with an echo of pleasure at the memory of how those bruises had been made...

Tsubasa swore under his breath as he marched into the bathroom. It looked like he would have to trade that hot bath for another cold shower.

*** 

Professor Tsubasa turned up the next morning wearing a high-necked black robe similar to the ones that Snape wore, although it was made of silk instead of linen or wool, and the other teachers stared at him in surprise.

"Why, how unusual to see you in Western clothes, Tsubasa!" Lupin exclaimed. "But you look quite fetching." Snape glared at him, and Lupin added placating, "Oh, you look very fetching this morning, too, Severus."

"I wasn't fishing for compliments, Lupin," Snape said huffily. "Please, don't let me keep you from your morning fashion report."

Lupin just chuckled at his lover's sarcasm, and Tsubasa smiled politely and replied, "Thank you, Remus. My cousin Ichiro made some British-style robes for me as a going-away present, and I thought that I ought to put them to use. He's one of the most talented Weavers in the valley, and it would be a shame to let his gifts collect dust in the closet."

"Indeed it would," Lupin agreed. Then, as Tsubasa lifted a forkful of eggs to his mouth, Lupin casually asked, "By the way, what happened to your lip?"

Tsubasa slipped the fork very carefully into his mouth, obviously trying to avoid touching the swollen portion of his lower lip. He slowly chewed and swallowed his food, took a sip of tea, and then replied just as casually, "Oh, Ash hit me in the face in practice yesterday. It's a hazard of the trade."

"Really?" Lupin asked, sounding surprised. "My, Ash must be quite a talented student to be able to land a blow on a master swordsman! I'm impressed."

A faint flush spread across Tsubasa's face, noticeable only because his skin was so fair. "Oh yes, he is quite talented," Tsubasa replied. "He shows a remarkable aptitude for the sword. And I must admit, I was a bit careless." He smiled, just a touch bitterly. "I let my guard down, but it was my own fault."

"Are you still talking about fencing?" Snape whispered to Lupin sardonically.

"Why, of course, Severus," Lupin replied, with an air of exaggerated innocence; he actually fluttered his eyelashes. "What else would we be talking about?" Lupin's fingers reached up to brush against the high collar of his own robe in a seemingly absent-minded manner. Snape, of course, knew that the collar concealed several bruises from an early-morning make-out session before breakfast. Sometimes the werewolf acted like he was still a horny teenager.

The Potions Master just snorted in response to Lupin's comment. But after he thought about it for a moment, he realized that in a manner of speaking, Lupin's words were true. Lupin was a master at fencing with words, which was rather odd for a Gryffindor, since subtlety wasn't exactly the strong point of that House. It wasn't Lupin's strong point, either, but somehow he usually managed to come out ahead in their own verbal sparring matches--which was no small feat, Snape silently acknowledged with mingled respect and consternation.

Professor Tsubasa seemed to be able to hold his own against Lupin, responding to the werewolf's gentle teasing and prying with calm, polite reserve. Lupin had managed to provoke a small reaction from him, though--that faint blush.

_Chalk up one for the werewolf,_ Snape thought to himself with amusement, and just the slightest bit of pity for Tsubasa.

*** 

Tsubasa was relieved when breakfast was over and he was able to make his escape. He knew that there was no malice in Lupin's playful teasing, but still, he had the uncomfortable feeling that the werewolf knew exactly why he was wearing a British-style robe today. Come to think of it, both Lupin and Snape usually wore high-necked shirts or robes, too. That was the traditional style, of course, but maybe all werewolves liked biting their lovers on the neck...

A little shudder of arousal ran through Tsubasa's body at that thought. He doggedly reminded himself that last night was strictly a one-time occurrence, at least for the foreseeable future, and he tried to focus on the memory of last night's cold shower and the sensation of the cold water flowing over his body and literally dampening his lust. When that was only mildly successful, he tried to further distract himself by counting to one-hundred in Japanese, English, and German.

His German was a little sketchy, having been picked up from a tengu friend who had in turn learned it from a Muggle businessman. He managed to reach twenty-five by the time he arrived at the Transfiguration classroom, and he was more-or-less in control of his body by then.

His first class of the day happened to be the second-year Gryffindors, and Allegra Zabini piped up innocently, "Professor Tsubasa, why aren't you wearing your Japanese clothes?"

Tsubasa patiently repeated the same story he had given Lupin, about how his cousin had made the robes for him. Inwardly, he sighed and thought to himself, _It's going to be a long day._

And it was a long day, especially since his body was still slightly sore from the night before. But having lived and trained with the tengu warriors for ten years, he was accustomed to pain, and gave no outward sign of it, even in his Physical Defense classes. Allowing a few bruises and aches to slow him down would have caused his tengu instructors to smack him with the flats of their blades. And he definitely did not want any of his all too perceptive students to ask why he was moving slowly today. A few asked him about his swollen lip, but they seemed to buy the excuse that it was a sparring accident.

"I hear you stopped by the townhouse yesterday," Lukas said between lessons. Since he said it with a grin and a sly wink, Tsubasa assumed that Ash had not said anything about the letter or the fact that their potential romance was currently in a state of limbo. And although he would rather not have the entire pack discussing his lovelife, it still worried Tsubasa a little that Ash was keeping secrets from his packmates. It was out of character, from what he knew of the werewolves, and it made him uneasy to think that he might be coming between Ash and his pack.

Tsubasa sighed again; it was definitely going to be a long day.

The day didn't get any better when Laura Madley managed to corner him between classes. He had been deliberately avoiding her, which had not been difficult, since the fifth-year Hufflepuffs were not scheduled for Transfiguration or Physical Defense today.

"If I am not mistaken, you should be heading to Potions class right now, Miss Madley," Tsubasa said. "I have heard that Professor Snape does not tolerate tardiness."

"I know that, sir," Laura replied, staring at him anxiously. She kept shifting her weight from foot to foot, and was practically vibrating with nervous energy--and for once, the nervousness had nothing to do with the thought of an angry Potions Master. "But I just had to know--did you take Mr. Randolf the letter? What did he say? Will he meet me?"

Tsubasa repressed another sigh and said, "I delivered the letter, but Mr. Randolf needs some time to think things over before he can give you a response." Laura stared at him with a look of bewilderment and disappointment, and Tsubasa gently explained, "You must understand, it was quite a shock for him to receive your letter out of the blue like that."

"But if he didn't deny it, then that must mean that he is my...that he really is a Madley?" Laura asked hopefully.

Tsubasa hesitated, not knowing how much he should reveal. It was for Ash to explain why he didn't want to rejoin his family, but Tsubasa felt that he ought to prepare the girl a little for the disappointment that was to come. He had never met Laura's parents, but it was clear that she loved them and had no fear of them, and he wondered at the fact that a man as cruel and brutal as the stepfather in Ash's story could be so different with Laura. Was it merely that she was his biological child and Ash was not, or had he changed, perhaps felt regret after he believed that his stepson was killed? Even if he was remorseful, Tsubasa did not think that he could ever forgive Alden Madley for what he had done to...

_To his own son,_ Tsubasa finished in his mind, quickly shying away from the words "my mate"--because Ash was not his mate. He could not even really call Ash his "lover"; he was not sure what Ash was to him at the moment.

"It was a shock," Tsubasa repeated, without really answering Laura's question. "And..." He hesitated again, then continued gently, "His memories of his childhood are not very pleasant. To relive the past is...difficult for him."

Laura looked confused and distressed. "Not pleasant? Are you just talking about the werewolf attack, or...?" Her voice trailed off for a moment, and then she continued, "I've heard that he used to quarrel with my parents sometimes, but surely it was nothing serious. Parents and children quarrel all the time...well, I don't really fight with my parents, but some of my classmates do..."

She stared at Tsubasa with tearful, pleading eyes that seemed to be asking him for reassurance, but unfortunately, he had none to give. "You must wait for Mr. Randolf's reply," Tsubasa said firmly. "It is not my place to speak for him; I have probably already said too much."

"But--" Laura started to protest.

"You have already waited fifteen years to meet him," Tsubasa pointed out, as kindly as he could. "Surely a few days will not hurt?"

"Days?" Laura cried in dismay. "How long do you think it will take him to reply?"

"I do not know," Tsubasa answered honestly. "But please be patient and give him some time."

"Please, isn't there something you can tell me?" Laura begged. 

Tsubasa shook his head, calmly but implacably. "I know it is difficult, but you must be patient. Now you had better head to Potions class." And because he felt sorry for her, he wrote her an excuse slip, so that Snape--hopefully--would not punish her for being late. Although with Snape, one could never tell. Even with the note, he might still dock her a few points if he was in a bad mood; he seemed to take a special sort of glee in punishing his students. He and sweet-tempered Lupin made an odd couple, but Tsubasa supposed that their differences balanced out and complemented each other. 

Laura still looked unhappy, but she took the excuse slip and thanked him politely, then hurried off to the dungeon. Tsubasa silently thanked the gods that tomorrow was Saturday, so if he laid low in his quarters, he could avoid Laura for the rest of the weekend. He wasn't sure whether to hope that Ash would reply quickly or not, partly because his response was bound to distress Laura even more, but Tsubasa was thinking mostly of his own discomfort. It was going to be difficult for them to go back to being just friends, as if nothing had happened. As if last night had never happened...

Tsubasa sighed gloomily; things were going just great. He had nearly driven a student to tears, and she probably would break down and cry when she actually met the brother she'd been longing for and heard the true story behind his disappearance. Not to mention that the most promising relationship he'd had in years was with an emotionally damaged, commitment-phobic werewolf.

Not only was this going to be a long day, but it was shaping up to look like a long weekend, too. In fact, it looked as though it was going to be a very long year...

*** 

"Severus?" Lupin called as Snape rummaged through the closet. "You don't need to pack that many robes just to spend the weekend at your mother's house."

"I'm not packing robes," came the irritable and slightly muffled response from the back of the closet. "And technically, it's a mansion, not a house, and it's my mansion, not my mother's."

"I beg your pardon, Lord Snape," Lupin said with a grin as Snape emerged from the closet carrying a large cardboard box. "Although I would like to hear you tell Lady Selima that Snape Manor isn't her house."

"Mansion," Snape corrected. "And I'm not stupid enough to tell my mother such a thing to her face, Lupin."

"Of course not," Lupin laughed. "But if you weren't packing robes, what were you doing in there?" 

"I thought I'd help you with your research, Lupin," Snape replied.

Lupin moved closer, nuzzling his lover's neck. "But I thought you said we didn't have time for that before we took the Floo to the Manor."

"I meant real research, you idiot werewolf!" Snape snapped, pushing Lupin away from him, but not very forcefully. Lupin took that as permission to nuzzle him a little longer before he stepped back and gazed at the box curiously.

"So what's in the box, Sev?"

"The notes from my Wolfsbane Potion research," Snape replied. "If you're really serious about writing that book, I thought you might like to see them, although I know you're not much of a potion brewer."

"Thank you, Severus," Lupin said, surprised but pleased by the offer. "I would like to see them. I may not understand all the technical details, but the development of the potion is a major event in the history of lycanthropy, and it ought to be included in the book."

"I know that you don't have time to sort through all this right now, but we could take the papers with us to the Manor, and you could work on your book over the weekend," Snape said. 

"And you could help me with my research," Lupin said innocently.

"Which type of research?" Snape asked dryly, and Lupin just grinned and winked at him in response.

They gathered up the box and their bags and Lupin's pet dog Cabal, and took the Floo to Snape Manor, where they had a quiet dinner with Lady Selima. She was still cool and reserved, but the icy formality she used to display when Lupin had first met her had thawed somewhat, and she seemed to be looking forward to Theodore's arrival tomorrow.

"Don't feed the dog at the table, Professor," Selima scolded as Lupin slipped Cabal a scrap of meat. Cabal had already been fed before they left Hogwarts, but like any dog, he would always stare up at the dinner table hopefully, his eyes most eloquently giving the impression that he was starving to death.

"Sorry," Lupin said, grinning sheepishly.

"He cannot help feeling a certain fellowship towards another canine," Snape drawled in his low, sardonic voice.

"I admit that I can't help begging in my wolf form when there's a nice joint of beef on the table," Lupin chuckled, and both Snapes rolled their eyes.

After dinner, Lupin and Snape went upstairs to their room, and Selima retreated to the study to go over some of the Snape family accounts. Cabal followed after her happily; for some reason, he was very fond of Selima although she regarded him as a nuisance to be put up with--much the same way that she treated Lupin, as a matter of fact. Lupin grinned to himself, wondering if Selima secretly gave Cabal treats when they were alone together.

While Snape sat at his desk, grading homework assignments, Lupin sat on the bed, leafing through the Wolfsbane Potion notes and marveling at the sheer amount of data and all the work that must have gone into developing the potion. 

"When did you actually begin working on the potion, Severus?" Lupin asked.

Glancing up from the stack of homework papers, Snape replied, "Well, I started wondering if a cure could be developed shortly after I discovered you were a werewolf. But I didn't actually begin working on it until after I joined the Death Eaters. I came across an article in a Potions journal written by Professor Kamiyama, about a potion he was trying to develop that would lessen the effects of a werewolf's transformation. Dumbledore put me in touch with him, and we began corresponding and comparing notes on our research. Later, as our research progressed, I visited him in Japan from time to time so that we could work together on the potion."

"That was when you learned Japanese," Lupin murmured.

"Yes," Snape replied, although it hadn't really been a question. "Kamiyama speaks fluent English, of course, but I worried that certain concepts might be lost in the translation, so I thought that we could communicate more efficiently if we could both speak each other's languages."

"You did it for me," Lupin said with a tender smile.

"Yes, but don't flatter yourself, Lupin," Snape said gruffly, blushing a little at that admission of sentimentality. "It was also an opportunity to test and challenge my potion-making skills."

"And you love a good challenge," Lupin said, still smiling. "But it took you and Naoto over ten years to perfect the potion. How many Potions Masters would have kept at a seemingly impossible task for so long?"

"It was not impossible," Snape pointed out haughtily. "Because in the end, we did create a viable potion. It is not uncommon for difficult potions to take years to develop. If one does not have the perseverance necessary to see one's research through to the end, then one is not deserving of the title of 'Master'."

"But of course there was a certain personal motivation as well," Lupin said gently. "You wanted to help me, and Naoto wanted to help his son-in-law Seiji."

"Well, of course," Snape said huffily, and Lupin smiled. "It's not as if I was working on the potion for my own health, Lupin."

"So many years," Lupin said softly, staring at the stack of papers in his hands. "And you never gave up." Snape blushed again and started to turn back to the homework assignments, but then Lupin asked, "How did you test the potions? How could you know if they were effective or safe before you gave them to actual werewolves?"

Snape sighed and said reluctantly, "There are certain chemical reaction tests that can be done, and we could get a crude gauge of the level of toxicity by testing the potion on animals, but really, Lupin, the only way to accurately test the potion was to have a werewolf drink it." 

Lupin's eyes widened in dismay, and Snape said, "If it makes you feel any better, the test subjects were all volunteers and none of them died, although some of them did get sick from earlier versions of the potion. I never met the volunteers face-to-face, of course, since my identity could not be revealed to them, but Dumbledore found the volunteers and arranged the sessions; I secretly observed them through an enchanted mirror so that I could see how effectively the potion worked and what changes needed to be made."

"Albus recruited werewolves to serve as test subjects?" Lupin asked, looking a little shaken.

"They were not that difficult to persuade, apparently," Snape said. "Most werewolves would have done anything to find a cure, or at least some relief from their curse. Kamiyama tested the potion on his own volunteers in Japan as well. He never revealed their identities to me, but I assume that Seiji must have been the chief guinea pig, since he was the one who first sought a cure from Kamiyama."

"Albus never asked me to volunteer," Lupin said, still looking troubled. "You were making the potion for me; I should have assumed some of the risk."

"Of course he never asked you to volunteer, you moron!" Snape snapped. "Do you think that I would have allowed you to take it before I knew it was safe? Aconite is a deadly poison, and finding the correct dosage--strong enough to prevent the madness of the change without actually killing the werewolf--was the main reason why it took so many years to perfect the potion!" 

Snape calmed down and dropped his gaze to the floor, avoiding Lupin's eyes. "It was an unspoken agreement between Dumbledore and myself that you would not be allowed to take the potion until I knew it was safe. I'm sure that he knew why I was working on it, even though I never stated the reason explicitly. And yes, I risked the lives of those test subjects, but I didn't care about them. I cared about you." He paused, then added defensively, "And I know that makes me an evil bastard, but after all, I am a Slyth--"

To Snape's surprise, Lupin jumped up and flung his arms around him, holding him tightly. "I love you, Severus," Lupin whispered. "I love you so much."

"You Gryffindors can be quite unpredictable at times," Snape said in a bemused voice. "I thought you would be upset that I experimented on innocent people."

"I am, a little," Lupin admitted. "But at least they were all willing volunteers. I know that I would have volunteered if Albus had asked me, even if I hadn't known that you were the one working on the potion. And I know that at some point, the potion had to be tested on actual werewolves. But most of all, Severus, I love you for working so hard on the potion for my sake, for so many years, without ever expecting anything in return, without even taking any credit for the creation of the potion."

"Until Kamiyama outed me," Snape grumbled. "First to you, and then to the Daily Prophet."

Lupin laughed and kissed him on the cheek. "I know that you like the glory of being a world-famous potion inventor," he teased. "And you certainly deserve it, my love." He smiled coyly and asked, "Will you help me with some research, Sev? Not this." He gestured at the papers on the bed. "The other kind."

"Well..." Snape said, pretending to think it over. Lupin didn't wait for him to finish his sentence, and covered Snape's mouth impatiently with his own, kissing him hungrily. "Well, since you are so insistent," Snape said breathlessly when Lupin finally broke off the kiss, "I suppose that I can help you out, Lupin."

"Good," Lupin growled, grabbing him by the front of his robes and pulling him towards the bed.

"Ah, Lupin, wait!" Snape cried as they tumbled down onto the bed together, landing on top of the Wolfsbane Potion notes, crushing half of the papers and sending the rest flying into the air. "Damn it, Lupin, the notes!"

"Sorry," Lupin said sheepishly. "I sort of forgot about them."

"They represent years of research, you know," Snape grumbled as they gathered up the papers.

"I know," Lupin said apologetically, carefully smoothing out the crumpled pages. "I really am sorry." He kissed Snape and said, "I promise that I'll make it up to you."

"And how do you propose to do that?" Snape asked archly.

Lupin unfastened his robes and unbuttoned his shirt, then struck a provocative pose. "How about some amazing, mind-blowing sex?" he asked in a sultry voice.

"Oh, stop that Lupin," Snape said, trying not to smile. "You look like you're posing for the cover of one of Prospero's ridiculous romance novels. Perhaps I should be trying to invent a potion that will control a werewolf's libido."

Lupin remained in the pose and licked his lips in a deliberately lascivious manner. "Well then," he said huskily, "won't you need to do some research on that?"

Snape swallowed hard, and the urge to laugh vanished. He decided that he would never let Lupin pose for the covers of Prospero's books, because he looked...well, he looked too damned sexy, to put it bluntly. He didn't want anyone else to even think of Lupin in a lustful manner, because Lupin belonged solely to him and he didn't intend to share Lupin with anyone else, not even in their imaginations.

"Yes," Snape replied hoarsely, and the potion notes were quickly packed away in their box, and the two Professors attended most ardently to their "research".

*** 

Theodore arrived the next day, and received an enthusiastic hug from Lupin, a brief kiss on the cheek from Selima, and an awkward but fond pat on the shoulder from Snape. He seemed very happy, and was full of stories about his work in Ireland.

Prospero and Blaise came over for dinner later that night, and they all talked about Theodore's research, as well as Blaise's new job. "We had to turn that moon medallion over to the museum," Theodore said. "But I made a copy of the runes, and Master Tremayne and I are still trying to decipher them. I really want to solve the mystery behind this artifact more than any of the others, because I'm convinced that it's something to do with lycanthropy."

Lupin smiled at him warmly. "We're all very proud of you, Theo. Severus says that Master Tremayne is very pleased with your work."

"I haven't gotten very far on the medallion, though," Theodore sighed regretfully. "The code is so complex. Henry Bletchley hasn't had any luck with it so far, either; he's still running some tests on it. But he has several other artifacts from the dig to work on as well, so he can't spend all his time on the medallion."

"I'm sure that you'll figure it out eventually," Lupin said encouragingly. "I hope to be able to include some of your research in my book."

"How is the book coming along, Remus?"

"Oh, quite well," Lupin replied cheerfully. "Severus has been giving me a lot of help with my research."

Snape's face turned red and he glared at Lupin. Theodore smiled, but pretended not to notice, and tactfully changed the subject. "So how are things going at Hogwarts, Blaise?"

"I was a little nervous at first," Blaise replied. "But things have been going pretty well so far."

"He's being modest," Lupin said with a grin. "He's rapidly becoming one of the most popular teachers in the school."

"I think they're just relieved to have a teacher other than Professor Binns," Blaise laughed. "And I've bribed my classes with the possibility of a field trip. The Headmaster likes the idea, but he says the students will have to get signed permission slips from their parents."

"What about that new teacher, the one from Japan?" Theodore asked. "What is he like?"

"He's ungodly beautiful," Blaise replied bluntly. "Sort of like a male version of Professor Chizuru. Nearly all the female students, and probably a few of the boys, are head-over-heels in love with him." Theodore scowled and Blaise smiled. "But he's not my type."

Theodore relaxed and smiled back at him. "So does he do anything besides look pretty?"

"Yes, actually, I think he's the one who's becoming the most popular teacher in the school, not me," Blaise said. "The Transfiguration students say that his classes are a lot of fun. And they like that he explains the reasons behind how the spells work, instead of just teaching them the incantations. I'm not sure that the Physical Defense students love him quite as much, though. Dylan says that he's a good teacher, but he won't hesitate to whack you with his sword if you make a mistake." Blaise grinned. "I'm rather glad that I've graduated and don't have to take Physical Defense class anymore."

"Me too," Theodore agreed fervently. "I wasn't really very good at it."

"Dylan is, though," Blaise laughed, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Which means that he gets special tutoring from Professor Tsubasa, since he's giving advanced lessons in swordfighting to a select group of talented students, of which Dylan is one."

Theodore grinned wickedly. "Draco always used to complain that Dylan was perfect, but I guess that it doesn't always pay to be perfect!"

"Oh, and it seems that he's been giving private lessons to one of the werewolves," Blaise said. "Ash Randolf, the one who works at the Ministry." He smiled slyly at Lupin. "Remus seems to think that they've become very...close...friends."

"Really?" Selima asked, sounding both scandalized and intrigued, and Snape glared at Lupin again.

"Honestly, Lupin, you're a worse gossip than Rita Skeeter!"

"That's a bit of an exaggeration, Severus," Lupin protested, but he did look a little sheepish. "I would appreciate it if you didn't spread that rumor around," he said to Selima politely. "I would hate for Ash and Tsubasa to be embarrassed because of my indiscretion."

"Of course you may rely on my discretion, Professor," Selima assured him.

"Until it becomes politically advantageous to do otherwise," Snape muttered under his breath. In the circle of the Slytherin elite, information was a commodity that was more valuable than gold, and Selima was a master at gathering pieces of information and gossip. She hoarded them carefully, and dispensed them in a manner that would best benefit the Snape family. Fortunately for Tsubasa and Ash, neither of them were in a position to do Selima any political favors, so they were probably safe from blackmail for now, although things might change if Ash managed to move up to a higher position at the Ministry. 

Prospero looked amused, but changed the subject by saying, "I understand that you've become fast friends with the Minister's wife, Selima."

Selima's lips curved in a very self-satisfied smile. "Yes, I have been helping her to plan her son's wedding; she was a little overwhelmed at the prospect of planning a high society wedding. She is actually quite a charming woman, although a bit naive."

"Then it's a good thing that she has you to advise her and help her maneuver through society," Prospero said smoothly. "For no one does that better than you, Selima."

"You are such a flatterer, Prospero," Selima said lightly, but her smile grew wider, until she looked as smug as a cat licking cream from its whiskers.

"And what do your cohorts Priscilla Parkinson and Elaine Baddock think of your new friendship?" Snape asked sardonically.

"They do not like it, but who cares what they think?" Selima retorted coolly. "They are not married to the Minister of Magic, and their families have fallen out of favor due to their connections with Lucius Malfoy and his cronies. If they were wise, they would have cultivated Molly's friendship as well, but they foolishly let their pride get in the way. They will regret it later."

"Then perhaps later they'll try to cozy up to the Weasleys," Theodore said.

"But Molly will remember that they snubbed her," Selima said with great satisfaction. "And she will also remember that out of all the prominent pureblood families, I was the first to befriend her and make her feel welcome. And for some reason, she seems to be fond of you, Severus, so she was already inclined to feel friendly towards the Snapes."

"For some reason?" Snape muttered, wondering whether to feel more offended by the implied insult in his mother's words, or by the fact that Molly was "fond" of him.

Lupin chuckled. "Molly is first and foremost a mother, and I think that she was won over by how protective Severus was of his students in general, and Theo and Dylan in particular."

Theodore smiled at his father affectionately, and Snape bowed his head over his plate to hide the flush staining his sallow cheeks. "You never would have associated with Molly before her husband became the Minister," he grumbled to his mother.

"Well, of course not," Selima said, frowning as if she did not see the point of his statement. "But that was then and this is now."

Prospero laughed and bowed slightly in Selima's direction. "You are as practical and ambitious as always, Selima," he said, but his tone of voice was admiring rather than accusing.

"Of course," she agreed, smiling at him serenely. Lupin, Theodore, and Blaise laughed, while Snape just sighed and shook his head.

*** 

After dinner, Lupin encouraged Blaise--with a grin and a wink--to show off his new quarters at Hogwarts to Theodore. Prospero grinned as well, and Snape smiled slightly and nodded. Theodore and Blaise glanced at Selima apprehensively, but she calmly bid them goodnight and reminded them to come back to the Manor for lunch the next day.

They stopped by the Slytherin dorm first, so that Theodore could say hello to Dylan, and they spent some time there chatting with Dylan and their other former housemates, who made a point of jokingly referring to Blaise as "Master Zabini". Snape probably would have considered it insolent, but Blaise let it slide, since the teasing was good-natured.

Afterwards, they went up to Blaise's quarters, and Theodore looked around, grinning. "Not bad; I guess the teachers have it pretty good at Hogwarts. It looks almost the same as Father's quarters, but a little smaller. Maybe the Heads of House get bigger rooms, or maybe it's because Remus is living with him. Although I'm sure that he had the same quarters before Remus moved in with him." Theodore frowned thoughtfully. "Do you think the rooms in the castle can change sizes?"

"If the staircases and rooms can move around, I don't see why the rooms can't expand or shrink as well," Blaise said with a smile. "Or perhaps my quarters are smaller because I'm the newest staff member, and therefore the lowliest in status. But it's more than twice the size of my room at home, so I won't complain. Not to mention that I get free meals and the house-elves do all the cleaning." He laughed. "It's almost like being a pureblood Lord!"

"Lord Zabini," Theodore said, bowing playfully.

Blaise returned his bow in a courtly manner. "Would you care for some wine, Lord Snape?" he asked, gesturing to a bottle of wine and two glasses laid out on a nearby table. "A nice vintage that I picked up in Hogsmeade this morning."

"Are you trying to ply with me alcohol to lower my defenses so that you can have your way with me, Lord Zabini?" Theodore asked, a look of mock indignation on his face.

"Perhaps," Blaise replied with a grin.

Theodore grinned back at him and grabbed the bottle and glasses. "Well, in that case, why don't you show me the bedroom, Lord Zabini?"

They lounged together on the bed, still fully-clothed, at least for the moment, sipping their wine and enjoying each other's company. Blaise was both amused and just a little annoyed that Theodore was still obsessing about the mysterious medallion he had been talking about at dinner.

"If only we could break the code!" Theodore said in a frustrated voice, sipping absent-mindedly at his wineglass. "The runes are similar to the system we normally use, but they've been altered just enough to turn them into gibberish. It's maddening, knowing that the information is right there in front of us, but we can't read what it says!"

"Do you know what's maddening?" Blaise asked, resting his head on Theodore's shoulder. "The fact that I'm sitting right next to you in bed, and you aren't trying to get my clothes off." He pretended to pout. "Especially since we haven't seen each other in weeks."

"Sorry, love," Theodore laughed, giving him a kiss. "I know I'm sort of obsessed about this. But it's just that the medallion might be able to give us some information that can help the werewolves."

"I know," Blaise replied, feeling a little guilty. He knew how much Theodore loved his adoptive family, including Lupin. "I'm sure that you'll be able to translate the runes eventually," he added, kissing Theo on the cheek contritely.

"But I don't need to work on it right now," Theodore said. He set his glass down on the nightstand, then took Blaise's glass and set it aside as well. "It's waited this long; another day or two won't hurt. And I have missed you, Blaise."

"I missed you, too, Theo," Blaise whispered, and kissed him tenderly.

They undressed, and Blaise shivered slightly as he hastily pulled the covers over them. "Maybe I should build up the fire. It's a bit chilly tonight, and the castle's pretty drafty."

Theodore grinned and picked up his wand. "Let me show you some of the things I've learned during my apprenticeship."

"You want to give me an Ancient Runes lesson now?" Blaise laughed incredulously.

"You'll find it quite educational, I promise," Theodore said. "Now roll over."

"Why, are you going to do something kinky?" Blaise asked, but he obediently rolled over onto his stomach. Actually, a little kinkiness would be welcome after several weeks of celibacy. He felt Theodore's finger gently tracing a rune on his back, and Blaise gasped in surprise as he felt heat radiating from the rune, slowly spreading throughout his entire body until he felt as warm and cozy as if they had been lying beside the fireplace. "Aahh," he sighed blissfully.

"See, I told you that you'd find it educational," Theodore teased, then planted a kiss on the nape of Blaise's neck; Blaise sighed again.

"Writing runes on living flesh is advanced magic, isn't it?" Blaise murmured, feeling utterly content.

"Very advanced," Theodore informed him. "That type of magic isn't done very often these days, but Master Tremayne felt that I was capable of learning it."

"So this is a rune of warmth?" Blaise asked. "I can see that it would come in very handy in winter, particularly if you were stranded someplace where you couldn't build a fire."

"Yes," Theodore replied. "And there's another rune with the opposite effect that can keep you cool in the summer. And there are also runes of protection, which can be made permanent if they're tattooed onto one's skin. But the tattoo has to be done by a trained Runes Master using magical ink."

"Fascinating," Blaise said. "Although I think my mother would have a fit if I got a tattoo, even if it was a protective one."

"Would you like to see what else I've learned?" Theodore asked. Without waiting for a reply, he traced another rune on Blaise's back.

Blaise gasped as his skin began to tingle where Theodore had touched him. Then he moaned as his skin became hypersensitive all over his body, so that even the faint contact of the sheets brushing against his skin, or the feather-light touch of Theodore's hands and lips kissing and caressing his back produced heightened sensations of pleasure so exquisite that they were almost painful.

"Surely Master Tremayne didn't teach you this!" Blaise groaned. If Theodore's Master had been a young and handsome wizard instead of an elderly and crotchety one, Blaise might have been suspicious and jealous.

Theodore laughed wickedly and ran a finger down Blaise's spine, and Blaise shuddered, his back arching involuntarily. "No, he didn't teach me this particular spell," Theodore replied. "I learned it on my own, studying some books in his library. Makes me wonder what Master Tremayne got up to in his youth."

He continued to tease Blaise, tracing patterns on his skin that didn't seem to be magical but still set his skin on fire, with the heightened state of sensitivity that it was in. Blaise moaned and writhed on the bed, clawing at the sheets, and his hips began rocking against the bed. He was a little embarrassed to...well, to put it bluntly, to be humping the mattress like this, but he just couldn't help himself.

"Theodore, please!" he moaned.

"As you wish, my love," Theodore whispered into his ear, then began rummaging through the nightstand drawer. It didn't take him long to find the vial of lavender oil that Blaise had put there, and he grinned as he held it up. "Anticipating my visit, were you?"

"Of course I was, you stupid git!" Blaise said impatiently. "I've been thinking about it every day since the last time I saw you, after your birthday."

"I've been thinking about you, too, Blaise," Theodore whispered. "Why else do you think that I've been practicing these spells?" His fingers lightly and playfully sketched yet another rune across Blaise's buttocks, and Blaise sighed as he felt his lower body, tense with anticipation, begin to relax without decreasing his desire in the slightest. He thought Theodore would enter him then, but instead Theodore massaged his back and shoulders with hands that were slick with lavender oil. Blaise sighed again, the oil feeling soothingly cool against his heated skin.

Finally, one of Theodore's hands slid down lower, and Blaise moaned softly as he felt Theodore's fingers slip easily inside him; his body was completely relaxed and open to his lover's touch. He raised his hips off the bed to drive Theo's fingers in deeper, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees. "Please, Theo," he whispered. "I'm ready."

He bit his lip to stifle a little whimper as Theo's fingers slipped out of him, then he moaned loudly as he felt Theo push into him from behind, stretching and filling him more completely--and much more satisfyingly--than his fingers did. They usually made love face-to-face, but this was wonderful, too, with Theo able to thrust into him deeply from this angle, and Theo's hands caressing his back and chest, gliding smoothly across his still sensitized skin. Blaise gasped as Theo's fingers lightly rubbed his nipples, which felt even more sensitive and tender than the rest of him, and he nearly fainted when Theo's hand wrapped firmly around his erection. Literally every inch of his skin had been affected by Theodore's rune, it seemed.

Each touch, each kiss, each thrust served to further excite and inflame him, the various sensations mingling and blurring until they all combined into one massive wave of pleasure, and Blaise cried out as he came. Theo thrust into him a few more times before he came too, with a loud groan.

As they lay in each other's arms afterwards, Blaise exclaimed, "Merlin's Beard! What kind of spell books does Master Tremayne keep in his library, anyway?"

"Well, it was covered with dust and tucked away on a bottom shelf next to some outdated textbooks, so he obviously hadn't used it in years, if ever," Theodore said with a grin. "But I've found it very useful."

"You seem to be very good at ferreting out sex manuals," Blaise laughed, remembering the book Theodore had found in the Nott library, which he had since passed on to his cousin. "You know, I'm still a bit cross with you for giving that book to Aric."

"But he needed it more than we did," Theodore pointed out practically. "We've already tried everything in that book that doesn't involve an extra partner or a probable torn ligament."

"I know," Blaise sighed. "I just feel rather sentimental about it, that's all. We learned how to make love from that book."

Theodore smiled dreamily and said, "I fantasized about doing those things with you a million times in my head before I ever showed you that book. I never dared hope that you might actually return my feelings back then."

Any irritation that he felt about Theo giving the book to Aric--which was mostly feigned, anyway--melted away when Blaise saw the expression on Theodore's face, a look of awe at the realization that Blaise really did love him. "I guess I can forgive you, then, love," Blaise said, planting a gentle kiss on his mouth. "But in return, I want you to teach those rune spells to me."

"As I said, they're very advanced spells," Theodore warned. "It will take a lot of practice."

"I don't have a problem with that," Blaise purred as he reached out to trace runes across Theodore's chest, and was pleased when he felt his lover shiver with pleasure, even though there was no magic in the runes. "In fact, I'd be willing to practice all night."

"Well then," Theodore said with a smile, "shall we get started?"

*** 

Meanwhile, Lupin was going through the Wolfsbane Potion papers and taking notes of his own, a look of concentration on his face. Snape was a little surprised that Lupin wanted to work on actual research rather than make love, but he didn't mind. There was plenty of time for that later, and it gave him time to conserve his energy, since he lacked Lupin's werewolf stamina.

So he was content to watch Lupin work, under the guise of perusing a Potions journal. Lupin-watching had always been one of his favorite pastimes, anyway, ever since they had been students at Hogwarts. He had never gotten bored while watching Lupin, even when he had been doing something as mundane as reading a book or doing his homework.

Reading the potion notes also made Lupin think about the past, since he knew that Severus's research had begun during the first war and continued through the years leading up to Voldemort's return. He also remembered that Severus had mentioned that a few werewolves had joined the Death Eaters during the first war. He wanted to ask Severus about them, but he knew that his lover did not like to talk about his past, particularly his time with the Death Eaters.

"What is it, Lupin?" Snape asked, frowning at the look on Lupin's face, one of concern bordering on sympathy. He appreciated the concern, because it was a sign of Lupin's love for him, but sympathy always made him uneasy, because it was just a step away from pity, and Snape hated being pitied.

"I was just wondering...if it doesn't bother you too much, will you tell me about the werewolves who joined the Death Eaters?" Lupin asked diffidently. "I never met any of them personally, although the other Order members told me about some of the atrocities that Greyback committed. I'm not sure if I will put any of it into my book, but somehow I feel as if their stories should not be forgotten, even if you and I are the only ones who remember. Perhaps I want to understand what drove them to join the Death Eaters. I know that I was lucky, for a werewolf; I had family and friends who loved me."

"All right, although I don't really know that much about them myself," Snape said calmly. He didn't enjoy recalling his Death Eater days, but he was willing to do so for Lupin's sake, and the sting of the memories had faded slightly with Voldemort's death. "Fenrir Greyback was the most prominent of the werewolf recruits, of course, and the de facto leader of the pack. Unlike Lukas, he ruled his pack through fear; they were all terrified of him, and even the other Death Eaters feared him a little. The Dark Lord did not trust him, of course, but he admired Greyback's ruthlessness and bloodlust. He turned Greyback loose on several of his enemies, like an attack dog." 

Snape grimaced. "I remember that once the Dark Lord ordered Greyback to kill a half-blood wizard who had offended him, and told him that he could do as he liked with the man's wife and child. Perhaps it's a mercy that he killed them. Greyback liked attacking children; he thought that if he could turn them while they were still young and pliant, he could teach them to embrace their wolfish side more completely than most adults are willing or able to, and raise them to be loyal and obedient members of his pack. However, since the Wolfsbane Potion did not exist back then, he had no control of himself while in his wolf form, and he usually ended up killing his victims outright rather than turning them, particularly those who were physically weak--such as young children."

Lupin shuddered. "How did he become a werewolf? Was he turned, or did he have inherited lycanthropy? His name makes me wonder if he was descended from a clan of werewolves like I was."

Snape shrugged. "I assumed that it was an alias. What sort of parents would name their child 'Fenrir'? If lycanthropy ran in the family, it would be like shouting out their secret to the world. Then again, your parents did name you 'Remus'..." Snape shook his head. "I can't imagine what they were thinking."

"It was an old family name," Lupin said with a smile. "The curse had been dormant for generations, so my parents had no reason to assume that I would turn out to be a werewolf."

"Still, saddling a child with such a name is like asking for trouble," Snape said. "But I know nothing about Greyback's past. There are no wizarding families that I know of named 'Greyback,' so it's likely that he assumed his name after he was turned, flaunting his lycanthropy rather than hiding it. Although it is possible that he had inherited lycanthropy; he seemed much more wolf-like, even in human form, than most werewolves. He had the typical sharp canine teeth, but even longer and sharper than most werewolves; thick, coarse gray hair that looked almost like fur; and long yellowish nails almost like claws. But perhaps he deliberately cultivated a wolfish appearance since he embraced his lycanthropy so completely."

"He sounds almost like a dark mirror refection of Lukas," Lupin murmured thoughtfully.

"In many ways, he was," Snape agreed. 

"What about the other werewolves?" Lupin asked.

"None of them were from prominent families, with one exception, and I know little about their pasts," Snape replied. "I got the impression that they were far down on the social ladder even before they were turned, so they were doubly cursed, by both poverty and lycanthropy, which is perhaps what led them to join the Death Eaters. Greyback brought two men with him into the Death Eaters; I knew them only by their last names, Cooper and Kent. He bragged that he had turned them himself, and they were utterly subservient to him. 

"Two other werewolves came in on their own later--Drew Summers and Jacob Burgess. They had both been cast out by their families and couldn't find work in the wizarding world. They were half-starved and dressed in rags when they first showed up, and would probably have sold their souls for three meals a day, let alone the promise of power when the Death Eaters won the war. Voldemort assigned them to work under Greyback and gave them a regular allowance--a mere pittance, at least by the standards of Malfoy and his cronies, but enough to keep them fed and buy their loyalty. They would willingly have died--or killed--for him after that. They ended up doing both. Summers's parents were Muggles, and they had already thought of him as a freak when he turned out to be a wizard."

"Not unlike the Dursleys," Lupin said.

"Yes, I suppose so," Snape said grudgingly. He and Potter had called a truce of sorts, but he still didn't like feeling sympathy for the boy, and he didn't like being reminded that Harry's childhood had been much more difficult than James's. "In any case, when Summers was turned, it was the last straw for them, and they disowned him entirely. As a test of his loyalty and his willingness to kill, Voldemort ordered him to murder his own family, which he did. He simply broke into the house on the day of the full moon and hid there until moonrise. Then he turned into a wolf and tore them all to pieces."

Lupin shuddered again. "I can understand why he would resent his family, but still..."

"The Dark Lord was a master at manipulating people," Snape said gravely. "It was common for him to order new recruits to kill a family member they had a grudge against, like Lorcan Foley."

"I remember," Lupin said. "He was a Slytherin a few years ahead of us. He was one of the Death Eaters who tried to kill Branwen. She said that he had joined them to get revenge upon his abusive father."

Snape nodded. "The Dark Lord had Foley torture his father to death in a Blood Magic ritual. For Foley, and for Summers, the murders were both test and reward at the same time. He knew they could not help but feel both guilt and triumph at murdering relatives they had once loved but now hated."

"Thereby twisting their souls and binding them even closer to him," Lupin said, feeling both sorrow and anger for all the victims that Voldemort had killed and corrupted. "Yes, I can understand that. But I am surprised that he allowed a Muggle-born to join the Death Eaters."

"As a werewolf, Summers was a Dark Creature; I suppose that canceled out his Muggle blood," Snape replied. "Besides, all werewolves are considered to have tainted blood, no matter if their blood was pure at birth. The Death Eaters never considered them equals. Whatever promises that Voldemort made to them and to the giants, they were nothing more than tools to be used. If he had won the war, he might have treated them as favored pets, but they would still have been nothing more than slaves. I don't really know much about Burgess; I believe that he came from a wizarding family of low rank, but the Dark Lord never ordered him to kill any of his relatives. However, he did kill several victims on Voldemort's orders, including an Auror."

"So there were five werewolves, including Greyback?" Lupin asked. "No, wait, you mentioned something about an 'exception'..."

"There were two other werewolves," Snape told him. "The next to join was a woman named Eliza Marsh. Greyback turned her during one of his rampages, and he kept her as...you couldn't really call her a mate, or even a lover. As a pet or concubine, I suppose you might say."

"A slave," Lupin said, feeling his stomach turning in revulsion.

"Not precisely," Snape said, to Lupin's surprise. "She feared him, of course, but she did not remain with him solely out of fear. She joined his pack and took the Dark Mark because she had nowhere else to go. Like Summers and Burgess, her family would have nothing to do with her once she was turned. Most of the Death Eaters looked down on the werewolves and regarded them as inferior, but Eliza was a pretty young woman, and I think Regulus Black felt a little sorry for her. He asked her once why she stayed with a brute like Greyback, and she replied, 'Because no one else would have me'."

"Oh, Severus," Lupin said in a shaky voice. "I knew that I was lucky to have a family that accepted me, but now I think that maybe I didn't fully appreciate just how lucky I was. That poor girl...I wonder, was she part of the reason that Regulus began to have doubts about the Death Eaters?"

"I don't know," Snape replied. "He didn't try to leave the Death Eaters until a few months later, so I don't think that it was Eliza's plight, specifically. I think it was more that he was horrified at the prospect of actually having to kill people. Regulus was a snob, but he wasn't really cruel. He never took pleasure in hurting people. He was a bit naive for a Slytherin, actually. He was the ideal pureblood son; he did exactly what his parents wanted and parroted all their beliefs without question. And finally, he did begin to question, but by then it was too late."

"Poor Regulus," Lupin said sadly. "Sirius still blames himself for not trying harder to save his brother."

"We all have regrets about the war, Lupin," Snape said. "But for what it's worth, I don't think that Sirius could have stopped Regulus from joining the Death Eaters. He was stubborn, as all the Blacks are, and a bit of an idiot. He wouldn't have believed what Sirius told him until he saw it for himself. If I had known that he was planning to leave the Death Eaters, I would have warned him that it was a bad idea. But he thought that I was part of the Dark Lord's inner circle, so he wouldn't have confided in me. He didn't confide in anyone, actually. He left abruptly, without warning, and he was hunted down and killed a few days later."

"So who was the final werewolf?" Lupin sighed.

"Bailey Flint," Snape replied.

"Flint?" Lupin asked startled. "Aren't the Flints a wealthy pureblood family? I remember having a Slytherin student named Marcus Flint when I first started teaching at Hogwarts."

"Yes, Bailey was Marcus's uncle," Snape said, nodding.

"But I never heard of any of the Flint family being turned and joining the Death Eaters," Lupin said. "Surely that would have made headlines in the Daily Prophet!"

"That's because the Flints covered it up by paying hush money to the Ministry and the Daily Prophet," Snape told him. "And Bailey never took the Mark. Greyback turned him and brought him to Death Eaters, and the Dark Lord was pleased that he had been able to turn a member of such a prominent family. He thought that he would be able to force Bailey to join the Death Eaters, because as Eliza pointed out, no one else would have a werewolf. He then planned to either have Bailey persuade the Flints to join his cause, or if they refused, to blackmail them into supporting the Death Eaters by threatening to make Bailey's lycanthropy public. 

"However, Bailey was either more loyal to his family than Voldemort realized, or he simply couldn't live with the shame of having been turned. He killed himself the day after his audience with the Dark Lord. It's actually not that easy for a werewolf to commit suicide, since their wounds heal so quickly and they're resistant to most poisons. Some half-healed scratches on wrists indicated that he probably tried to cut them first, and when that didn't work, he slit his throat, and that attempt turned out to be successful. By severing the jugular vein, he bled out too fast for his body to heal, and he probably died within a few minutes."

Lupin looked a little ill, and Snape said apologetically, "I'm sorry, Remus. These stories about the werewolves aren't very pretty. Do you still want to hear the rest of it?"

"Yes," Lupin replied firmly. "If their stories aren't pretty, that's all the more reason to remember them, to make sure that other werewolves don't have to face the same choices they did, of choosing between living in poverty as outcasts or finding acceptance among Dark Wizards."

"Well, there isn't really that much more to tell," Snape said. "After Bailey killed himself, things started going downhill for the werewolves. The Dark Lord was furious that he had lost a valuable pawn, and punished the entire pack with Cruciatus Curses for not watching Bailey more closely. That was when Greyback began to chafe at being on Voldemort's leash. Then Kent turned on his fellow Death Eaters during a night raid on the full moon, and they were forced to kill him, which didn't do anything to improve Greyback's mood."

"Wasn't it dangerous, taking werewolves along on a raid during the full moon, with no Wolfsbane Potion?" Lupin asked.

"Yes, and personally I thought it was a stupid idea, but one doesn't tell the Dark Lord that his ideas are stupid and expect to survive. Then again, perhaps he was testing the abilities and loyalties of the human Death Eaters; the people who accompanied the werewolves on their raids were usually considered 'expendable'--new, untried recruits or Death Eaters who weren't quite as devoted as the Dark Lord would like. 

"In any case, the idea was to attack just before moonrise, setting the werewolves loose on their targets--usually Muggles or Muggle-born wizards. And actually, most times it worked; the werewolves concentrated on the prey directly in front of them while the Death Eaters attacked from behind or chased after victims who tried to flee. But something went wrong one night--it seems that Kent's intended victim tried to flee and one of the Death Eaters accidentally got between Kent and his prey, and Kent turned on the Death Eater, who immediately cast a Killing Curse at him.

"Voldemort decided that he wanted more biddable servants, and began experimenting with potions and spells that would allow him to control the werewolves. One of them was a variant of that Werewolf Potion that Williamson tried to frame me with, which as you know, is quite toxic. Voldemort was using Cooper as a guinea pig, and he died, probably from drinking the Werewolf Potion, although it could have been a combined effect of all the potions he had ingested previously. But whatever the cause, the pack was now reduced to four members.

"Although he had little affection for his packmates, Greyback regarded them as his property, and he was angry that two of 'his' people had been taken from him, and he became harder and harder to control. I believe I told you before that he didn't take orders very well, even as a human, and one day he killed a victim that Voldemort had wanted taken alive. He probably hadn't intended to kill the man, but got carried away at the sight and scent of blood; he embraced his inner wolf more completely than any werewolf I've known, even Lukas. He was a beast even in human form."

"Worse than a beast," Lupin said quietly. "Real wolves kill for food, not pleasure."

"True," Snape agreed. "Anyway, Greyback disobeyed orders, intentionally or not, and the Dark Lord decided that he'd had enough. He hit Greyback with a Cruciatus Curse, an Imperius Curse, and an Incarcerous spell, all in quick succession. Then he grabbed Greyback and Disapparated. This happened in the middle of a full Death Eater conclave, and we waited for what seemed like a long time--perhaps a couple of hours--until he returned. He had not given us permission to disperse, you see, and no one wanted to be accused of disobeying orders, after the example he had just set with Greyback. So we waited, and when the Dark Lord returned, he was alone, his robes covered with blood--Greyback's presumably, since he showed no signs of injury."

"Did he say what he had done to Greyback?" Lupin asked.

"He said only that the problem had been dealt with, and Greyback would trouble him no more," Snape replied. "He did not elaborate, and no one dared question him further."

"An informant--I presume that was you--told the Order that Greyback had been killed by Voldemort, but if you never saw the body, you can't really be sure that he's dead," Lupin said, sounding startled.

"Oh, I'm sure, Lupin," Snape said grimly. "The Dark Lord was not the sort to leave loose ends lying about. He tracked down and killed Karkaroff even though it took him more than a year and Karkaroff was no real threat to him. He would never have let someone who had challenged his authority the way Greyback did live. Besides, if Greyback had lived, I'm sure that he would have made his presence known, especially after the Dark Lord was vanquished. There have been a few isolated werewolf attacks over the years since then, but nothing like the kind of brutal attacks Greyback carried out. Perhaps in a way it's lucky that the Wolfsbane Potion had not yet been developed when Greyback was still alive. It would have enabled him to remain--well, I'm not sure that 'sane' is the right word for someone like him, but it would have enabled him to remain conscious and intelligent during his transformations, allowing him to carry out his attacks and turn people with more precision."

"And then Voldemort could have created an army of werewolves," Lupin said, looking shaken. "Well, I am glad that did not happen, and we're lucky that he wasn't able to persuade Lukas's pack to join him during the second war. But I still don't understand why Voldemort never showed Greyback's body to the Death Eaters, if he meant to make an example out of him. He made you all watch him kill Karkaroff, after all."

"Well, he did bring back a rather gruesome souvenir," Snape said. "Greyback had long gray hair that he wore pulled back in a tail, and Voldemort brought back that tail of hair, soaked in blood, and threw it on the ground at the feet of the remaining werewolves. It was his way of showing that he'd defeated their pack leader and that they must obey him now, I believe. I did wonder about the lack of a body myself, but I suspect that Voldemort rendered him into potion ingredients--there are some Dark potions that call for werewolf blood, bone, fur, teeth, or flesh. That is the sort of thing that would have amused the Dark Lord--to have his servant continue to serve him after death, in a manner of speaking."

Lupin shuddered in horror. "I can't say I'm sorry that he's dead, but what a way to go--chopped up into potion ingredients!"

"I wouldn't feel too sorry for him if I were you, Lupin," Snape said mercilessly. "He killed numerous people, including children, and he turned at least four people that I know of, and there were probably others who managed to escape the dubious honor of joining his 'pack'. It's possible that some of the werewolves in Lukas's pack were turned by him, either directly or indirectly, by being bitten by him or a werewolf he created."

"You're probably right, Severus," Lupin sighed. "But still, if I had to kill an enemy, even one as cruel and twisted as Greyback, I would prefer to do so quickly and cleanly. Maybe not so much for their sake as for mine."

Snape often thought Lupin was too softhearted, but he was glad that Lupin had never had to kill anyone. He was glad that Lupin's hands and soul could remain free of blood and guilt. Snape sighed to himself a little, as he realized that he should probably be grateful that Potter had stopped Lupin and Black from killing Pettigrew in the Shrieking Shack. He really hated feeling indebted to the golden boy.

But all he said out loud was, "Well, fortunately, you didn't have to take on Greyback."

"Yes, I am glad of that," Lupin admitted. "So what happened to the other werewolves after Greyback was killed?"

"None of them outlived him for very long," Snape replied. "Burgess was killed in battle by the Aurors. As for Eliza, she wasn't really much of a combatant. Technically, she was a Death Eater because she was branded with the Mark, but she wasn't very good at offensive magic, and she never killed anyone, at least in her human form, although she was forced to take part in a few raids as a werewolf. Mostly she just followed Greyback around. She got caught in the crossfire during a battle one day; ironically, she wasn't attacking, but just trying to take cover. It wasn't clear who killed her--there were so many spells flying around that she might have been accidentally struck by one of the Death Eaters."

"Friendly fire," Lupin said.

"What?"

"Nothing, just a Muggle term."

"As for Summers," Snape continued, "he was captured near the end of the war and executed. The other captured Death Eaters were sent to Azkaban, but as a Dark Creature who had attacked and killed people during the full moon, he was deemed too dangerous to live. As if it really matters whether a victim was killed by a werewolf's teeth and claws or a Killing Curse. Dead is dead."

"Yes, but wizardly prejudice still applies, even to criminals," Lupin said with a wry, humorless smile. "A pureblooded Death Eater is still worth more than a werewolf." He sighed and shook his head. "I can't condone what those werewolves did as Death Eaters, but I can feel some sympathy for the hardships they suffered that led them to believe they had no other choice."

"I am sure that they suffered great hardships," Snape said. "But so did Lukas and his pack, and they did not join the Death Eaters, no matter what bribes or threats the Dark Lord offered. They are still responsible for the crimes they committed and the choices they made."

It was, perhaps, a harsh judgment, but Lupin knew that Severus judged himself just as harshly as he did everyone else, so he did not take offense. He knew that Severus would never quite forgive himself for being foolish enough to join the Death Eaters, or for the things that he had done as a Death Eater--even though he had done them to keep his cover as a spy. He also knew that Severus felt guilt over the things he had not done, and the people he had failed to save--especially his friends and fellow Death Eaters Rosier and Wilkes. He would probably carry that guilt with him for the rest of his life, and consider it his penance for the mistakes he had made. There would always be a little darkness in Severus Snape, but that was part of what made him who he was, and Lupin loved him for it.

"That is true, Severus," Lupin said quietly. "But if the wizarding world had not been so prejudiced against werewolves, then they would not have been driven to such desperate measures, and they would probably not have become Death Eaters."

"There is no point in wondering 'what if,' Remus," Snape said, in a voice that was meant to sound irritable but came out mostly weary. "It doesn't change the past."

"You're right," Lupin said. "We can't change the past, so all we can do is to try and make things better in the present." And despite the somber mood, Lupin smiled. "We've made a pretty good start. The anti-werewolf legislation was repealed, and the pack children now have the opportunity to go to Hogwarts like normal children, without needing to conceal their lycanthropy--or in Celine's case, her father's lycanthropy. And I myself am employed at Hogwarts, something that would have been impossible a few years ago."

"You are ever the optimist, Lupin," Snape said dryly, but he smiled slightly.

"Of course," Lupin said with a grin. "I am a Gryffindor, after all." In a more solemn voice, he said, "I will record the stories of the Death Eater werewolves so that they will not be forgotten, but I think that can wait until tomorrow." He carefully put away the papers he'd been working on, then got up and held out his hand to Snape.

Snape set aside his Potions journal and took Lupin's hand. "So did you want me to help you with your 'research'?" he asked as Lupin led him towards the bed.

"No," Lupin replied softly, to Snape's surprise. He wrapped his arms around Snape and said, "Tonight I just want to make love."

"Isn't that the same thing?" Snape asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No playing around tonight," Lupin said, kissing him tenderly. "Tonight I want the comfort of your body. I want to feel reassured that we survived the war and that you love me."

"I love you, Remus," Snape whispered, returning the kiss. "And I assure you that we are both very much alive."

"But I need proof of it, Severus," Lupin said huskily. "I want to touch your skin and feel its warmth. I want to taste your mouth and feel your breath on my lips." His voice dropped to a low, hungry growl. "I want to feel you inside me."

"Oh," Snape gasped, and fulfilled part of Lupin's request by kissing him deeply. Lupin's undisguised need for him was intoxicating, but it aroused a sense of tenderness and protectiveness in him at the same time. He remembered the sense of desperation he had felt after he had rejoined the Death Eaters during the summer following the Triwizard Tournament, and how Lupin had comforted him with his body. Now it was his turn to do the same thing for Lupin.

Snape's need at that time had been desperate and violent, but Lupin seemed to want something more gentle. So he took his time, leisurely running his hands along his lover's body, and he heard Lupin sigh contentedly, and felt Lupin relax beneath his hands, all the tension draining from his body. As Snape pressed his lips to Lupin's throat, he felt Lupin's hands reaching out to return his caresses, slowly running his fingers through Snape's hair and then stroking his cheeks and lightly tracing Snape's lips with his thumb, and then his hands slid down Snape's neck to stroke his chest and back, and his arms and legs--sensually but not quite pruriently, as if his goal was not so much to stir arousal, but to map Snape's body with his fingers, as if he wanted to be able to memorize every inch of it by touch. However, whether or not it was Lupin's intention, Snape found himself growing aroused by his lover's caresses.

Sometimes Lupin was afraid that he would wake up and find that his happy life with Severus was all a dream, but his lover's body felt reassuringly solid beneath his hands. His hands seemed to absorb the heat of Severus's body; he felt that heat flowing into his own body, warming and comforting him. He pressed his face against Severus's chest for a moment, breathing in his scent, then raised his head and kissed Severus deeply, and he savored the touch, smell, and taste of his mate, feeling almost dizzy with happiness.

The sweet perfume of lavender tickled Lupin's nose as Severus opened a jar of the scented oil. Lupin growled, softly and eagerly, then moaned as he felt his lover's fingers ease inside him, very slowly and gently stretching and preparing him. And Lupin's languorous contentment began to give way to a growing sense of urgency.

"Now," Lupin growled, and he heard his lover whisper into his ear with a wicked little laugh, "Very demanding, aren't you, Remus?" Lupin opened his mouth to make a retort, but all that came out was a little gasp as Severus entered him.

Snape actually liked that the normally gentle and mild-mannered Lupin was demanding in bed. It pleased him that he could bring out Lupin's inner wolf, and Snape delighted in the little growls and whimpers of pleasure that escaped from Lupin's lips as he thrust into him. He didn't know exactly why Lupin's wolfish behavior excited him so much in bed, but it did--one Dark Creature being drawn to another, perhaps, or maybe because it was a form of complete surrender and trust, for Lupin to give himself over to the wolf for Snape's sake after fighting it for so many years. And he loved the way that Lupin would offer up his throat when he neared climax, like a wolf in submission...

They made love slowly and tenderly at first, Snape still wanting to comfort Lupin, but things rapidly grew heated as the wolf grew more and more aroused, until Lupin tilted his head back and Snape bit down on his throat and they both came instantly.

Lupin howled joyfully, then collapsed onto the bed and lay contentedly in his lover's arms. "Thank you, Severus," he murmured.

"Silly werewolf," Snape said, gruffly but affectionately. "Thanking me implies that I'm doing you a favor, as if it were a hardship to make love to you--and I assure you that it was anything but." He kissed Lupin. "We Slytherins are anything but altruistic, you know, so I wouldn't do it unless there was pleasure in it for me as well."

Lupin wasn't just thanking him for the sex, but for the comfort and reassurance he had offered, and the fact that he had discussed a painful part of his past just because Lupin had asked him to. But Lupin felt sleepy and sated and content, and it seemed too complicated to get into right now. And besides, despite his words, Severus probably understood what he had meant. So all Lupin said was, "Then I am pleased that we are able to have such a mutually beneficial relationship, Severus." And as he drifted off to sleep, he heard Severus chuckle and say, "I love you, too, Remus."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The series was started before Half-Blood Prince came out, so Greyback wasn't among the Death Eaters in the earlier installments. But he was such a great character that I wanted to include him, so I created a new backstory for him here.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ash meets with Laura; the The Madleys learn that their son is still alive; and Snape runs into Macnair's son in Diagon Alley.

Ash was cross and moody all weekend, and the other werewolves couldn't help but notice. Kyra asked during dinner on Friday night, "Did you have a fight with Tsubasa or something?" In response, Ash threw his plate at her, and Kyra just barely managed to duck in time; the plate shattered against the wall behind her. Brian, who was normally the most mild-mannered of all the werewolves in the pack, instinctively growled in response to the attack on his mate.

"That's enough, Ash!" Matilda scolded. "If you can't behave like a civilized human being, then go to your room and let the rest of us eat in peace! But clean up that mess first."

"I'm neither human nor civilized," Ash muttered under his breath sulkily. "I'm a werewolf." But he took out his wand and cast a spell to clean up the broken plate and spilled food before stomping up the stairs to his room and slamming the door behind him. He knew that he was behaving childishly, but at the moment, he couldn't bring himself to care. 

He stayed away from the mansion although he usually visited his pack leader on the weekends, because he knew that he couldn't control his temper and that Lukas wouldn't tolerate him snapping at Narcissa or flinging plates at her. Lukas accepted that a certain amount of scuffling between the wolves in the pack was inevitable, and usually wouldn't interfere unless things got out of hand, but he was extremely protective of his mate, and even more so now that she was pregnant. Ash didn't normally quarrel with Narcissa, but he was in a bad enough mood that he was picking fights with almost anyone who spoke to him, and he thought it would probably be best for everyone--himself included--if he laid low and spent as much time as possible alone this weekend.

He spent the entire weekend brooding, literally feeling sick to his stomach at the thought of meeting his sister. But finally, he realized that he wouldn't be able to see Tsubasa until he settled things with Laura. If she knew that he was taking fencing lessons from Tsubasa, she would probably hang around the Physical Defense classroom in hopes of meeting him, which meant that if he intended to avoid her, he would have to skip his lessons and avoid Tsubasa as well. And he had an almost overpowering desire to see Tsubasa again, even though he also dreaded the awkwardness of meeting for the first time after their one night stand.

So late Sunday night, he contacted Tsubasa through the Floo and asked if he would arrange a meeting with Laura before their scheduled lesson on Monday afternoon.

"Of course; I would be glad to," Tsubasa said, sounding pleased to hear from him, which eased Ash's sense of dread slightly. "I know this is difficult for you, Ash, but I think that you're doing the right thing."

"I hope so," Ash sighed. "Thank you, Tsubasa."

"You're welcome," Tsubasa replied. "I'll see you tomorrow, then."

He was nervous and irritable the next day, too worried about the meeting with his sister to concentrate on his work. He snapped at everyone who crossed his path, sending one young clerk fleeing in tears, and he accidentally spilled a bottle of ink on the report he had been writing at his desk.

He snarled and cursed the ink, the report, and the Ministry for the seemingly endless amount of paperwork it required. A form had to be filled out for every complaint made about a suspect Muggle device, and another form for the investigation, and yet another form for each item that was confiscated and each person who was fined or arrested. Ash sometimes fantasized about creating a huge bonfire with all the reports he was forced to write.

A wand passed over the desk and the ink vanished. Startled, Ash looked up to see Arthur Weasley smiling at him. "Why don't you take the rest of the day off, Ash?" the Minister suggested pleasantly. 

"But I still have another hour of work left, and this report to finish..." Ash said, gesturing at the papers on his desk.

"It can wait till tomorrow," Arthur said firmly. "I doubt that you'll get anything constructive done today, anyway, and besides, you're terrorizing my staff."

"I'm sorry," Ash muttered, flushing guiltily. "I'm just...um...having a bad day."

"Everyone is entitled to a bad day once in awhile," Arthur said sympathetically. "Go home and get some rest, and perhaps things will look better in the morning."

 _Not likely,_ Ash thought to himself gloomily, but all he said was, "Yes, Arthur. I'll try not to let my...bad days...affect my work again."

"Is everything all right, Ash?" Arthur asked, a look of concern on his face. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"No, but I appreciate the thought," Ash replied, smiling ruefully. "It's...a personal matter."

"All right, I won't pry any further, then," Arthur said, although he looked curious in spite of his words. "But you do know that you can come to me if you need any help, or even if you just need someone to talk to, don't you, Ash?"

"Yes, thank you, Arthur," Ash said, touched by the gesture even though he didn't intend to discuss his problems with the Minister. His enthusiasm and good nature were a bit overwhelming and even annoying at times, but he was genuinely kind and seemed to honestly view the werewolves as equals, without any hidden fear or condescension.

"What's the matter, did they throw you out of the Ministry?" Matilda asked when he returned home. "I wouldn't be surprised, with the way you've been barking and growling at everyone lately." She gave him a stern look and added, "And don't you start growling at me, because I've had just about enough of your attitude, mister!"

"I'm sorry, Matilda," Ash said meekly, bending down to kiss her cheek. "I know I've been a beast lately."

She looked startled for a moment by his sudden change in mood, then laughed. "You could always turn on the charm when you wanted, you little scamp," she said affectionately. "Usually at just the right time to keep you out of trouble! Did you manage to charm the Minister into not firing you?"

"I'm not fired," Ash assured her. "Arthur just told me to take off early today."

"Good," Matilda said. "But you can't always count on your charm to save you, Ash. Don't screw up this job at the Ministry, because it's not just a job. Like it or not, you're in a prominent position, and the things that you do--good or bad--reflect on all werewolves."

"I know, I know," Ash grumbled sullenly. He knew that she was right, but he didn't like the idea of having so much responsibility heaped on his shoulders. He'd been a thief and a smuggler for most of his life, and he wasn't used to behaving in a "respectable" manner.

"Remember that, then," Matilda said sternly, but then she smiled at him in a motherly fashion. "And do us all a favor and make up with that pretty bird fellow of yours."

"Yes, Matilda," Ash sighed, and went upstairs to his room. Everyone in the pack assumed that he was in a bad mood because of a lover's spat with Tsubasa, which was a little annoying, but it was preferable to explaining the truth about the sudden appearance of his half-sister. He loved and trusted his packmates, so he wasn't really sure why he was keeping it a secret from them. Maybe because he was afraid that some of them would urge him to form a relationship with Laura, as Tsubasa had suggested, and he didn't want to do that. He just wanted the girl to go away and for his life to return to normal.

Arthur had meant to do him a favor by letting him take off work early, but in a way, it made things worse for Ash because it gave him more time to brood and worry. He tried to read a book, but couldn't concentrate, then paced around the room nervously for awhile, then finally pulled out a bottle of Firewhiskey he had hidden beneath his bed, and had a drink to steady his nerves. Except that he was so nervous that he took another drink and then another...until he decided that he'd better head over to the school before he drank the whole bottle and passed out cold.

*** 

[I'm drunk and I'm feeling down  
And I just wanna be alone  
You shouldn't ever come around  
Why don't you just go home?

...I can't help you fix yourself  
But at least I can say I tried  
I'm sorry but I gotta move on with my own life  
\--"Scars" by Papa Roach]

Ash arrived at the Physical Defense classroom early, but the girl was already there, giving Ash no time to compose himself. "Am I late?" he whispered to Tsubasa, wondering if his watch had slowed down.

"No, Laura was so eager to meet you that she arrived half an hour early," Tsubasa replied. He suddenly frowned, leaning in a little closer to sniff at Ash's breath. "Ash!" he hissed softly, so that Laura wouldn't overhear. "Have you been drinking?!"

"I'm not drunk," Ash hissed back defensively. "I just had a few shots of Firewhiskey to brace myself." Tsubasa stared at him skeptically, and Ash added, "Werewolves have a high tolerance for liquor."

Tsubasa looked as though he wanted to argue further, but Laura stepped forward, smiling anxiously. "Mr. Randolf?" she asked in a voice that quavered slightly. "I'm Laura Madley...your sister."

Now that Ash knew who she was, he could see the resemblance to Rosalind more clearly. She didn't look exactly like their mother, but she had Rosalind's heart-shaped face, wavy chestnut hair, and hazel eyes. She had certainly inherited Rosalind's beauty; Ash felt a little wrench of pain in his heart as he remembered how as a very young child, he had thought that his mother was the most beautiful woman in the world, and how he had wistfully longed for her to smile at him instead of glaring at him resentfully.

"Maybe I should give the two of you some privacy," Tsubasa said uncertainly, looking as though he felt uncomfortable intruding on their family reunion, but did not want to leave his student alone with a werewolf who might've had too much to drink.

"You can stay," Ash told him. He didn't really want to be alone with his sister, and besides, he didn't intend for this meeting to last very long. Laura started to babble nervously, repeating the things she had said in her letter, telling him about how she had not known that she'd had a brother until a few years ago when one of the villagers had accidentally let it slip.

"Laura," he interrupted, and the girl fell silent. "You seem like a nice girl, and I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I have no intention of ever seeing any of my blood relatives again. I am no longer a Madley; my family is my pack. I have left the past behind, and you should do the same. Let Ethan Madley remain dead, and go on with your life."

"How can you say that?!" Laura cried, looking hurt and bewildered. "How can I possibly pretend that you're dead when I know you're alive? And Mother and Father...they've missed you so much!"

"I doubt that very much," Ash said bitterly.

Laura calmed down a little and asked sympathetically, "Are you afraid that they'd disown you because you're a werewolf? They'll be glad just to know that you're alive, Ethan; they've mourned you so much. That's why they didn't tell me about you, because it hurt them to talk about you, to even just hear your name."

From the sweet, earnest expression on her face and the sincerity in her voice, she obviously believed what she said, although Ash knew quite well that his parents would not be glad to know that he was alive. Such naivety could only mean that she had been sheltered, coddled, and loved all her life. And suddenly Ash hated her for having what he had always craved as a child: the love of his parents. Why should she have what had been denied to him just because she was Madley's real child, conceived in wedlock, instead of a bastard stepson? He wanted to shatter her naive trust in her parents, to shake up her safe, cozy little world. He wanted to destroy her happiness.

His anger must have shown on his face, because Laura turned pale and took a step backwards, and Tsubasa looked concerned and moved a step closer. Ash tried to get control of himself, reminding himself that Laura wasn't responsible for the way her parents had treated him before she was born, and that she had never done anything to hurt him--at least, not intentionally. But her mere presence was like a thorn in his side, reminding him of all his childhood pain.

"Believe me, for your own peace of mind, you do not want to stir up the past," he said through gritted teeth, struggling against his instincts not to growl at the girl. "As far as I am concerned, Ethan Madley is dead."

"But this is you, isn't it?" Laura persisted stubbornly, holding out a photograph of Ethan and his parents. Things had already begun to go sour at that point, and their smiles were stiff and forced. It had been taken by his step-grandparents during one of the family's rare visits to the Muggle world. Madley had thrown away the photo, but Ash had secretly retrieved and kept it, desperately trying to hang onto the illusion of belonging to a happy family.

"And this is your book, isn't it?" Laura demanded, holding up a battered book of fairy tales. She opened the cover to reveal the name "Ethan Madley" written on the inside, in a child's shaky handwriting.

Ash felt a sharp stab of pain, like a spear lancing through his body at the sight of the book, and his eyes filled with tears. He remembered the book well; it was one of the books he had read to comfort and entertain himself when he had been living with Aunt Ernestine. He had stolen it from Ernestine's library and taken it with him after he and his mother left to move in with Madley, figuring that the old lady wouldn't miss it. He remembered how happy he had been when Madley had officially adopted him and told him that his name was now "Ethan Madley" instead of "Ethan Parker". He remembered how he had proudly written his new name in all his books to celebrate his new status as Madley's son...

He snarled and slapped the book out of the girl's hand, and it fell to the floor, its damaged spine cracking completely and splitting in two. Laura stared at him, her hazel eyes wide with shock, and Tsubasa cried, "Ash!"

"You want the truth that badly, girl?" Ash shouted. "Then I'll tell you the truth, but don't come crying to me afterwards when I shatter all your pretty illusions!"

"Ash!" Tsubasa cried again, reprovingly, but both Ash and Laura ignored him.

"Yes," Laura said, lifting her head stubbornly and almost defiantly, although her face was pale. "Please tell me the truth, Ethan."

Ash was a little taken aback by her response, but he was still too angry to back down. "Do you know why I was in the woods the night that the werewolf found me?" he demanded.

"I know that you quarreled with Mother and Father," Laura replied. "I think that's why they never told me about you, because they blamed themselves for what happened."

"That we 'quarreled'?" Ash laughed bitterly. "That's a bit of an understatement! I ran away to hide in the woods because of this." He pointed to the scar on his face. "And these." He rolled up his sleeves to reveal the scars on his arms.

"I-I don't understand," Laura stammered. 

"My loving father inflicted these scars on me," Ash snarled. "He hit me in the face with a whiskey bottle, and it broke and tore my face open. He kept hitting me with the broken bottle and that's where I got these." He held up his arms. "Oh, and just for your information, I didn't run away on the night of the full moon. I ran away about four days before the full moon, and I hid in the woods all that time because I was afraid that Madley would kill me if I went back."

"That's a lie!" Laura shouted hysterically, her face filling with horror and disbelief--and just a hint of doubt. "Father would never do such a thing! Why would he try to kill his own son?!"

"You stupid girl!" Ash shouted back at her. "Don't you realize that I'm not his son? I'm his stepson!"

"What?!" Laura gasped.

"Ash, please calm down," Tsubasa urged, placing a hand on Ash's shoulder; Ash growled and pushed him away.

"I'm Rosalind Parker's son, but not Alden Madley's," Ash snarled. "Rosalind got knocked up by some pureblood boy who wouldn't marry her, and her parents sent us off to live in the country with that sour old bitch Ernestine, to hide the shame of a bastard grandson. For five years, I lived like a prisoner in that house, where no one ever said a kind word to me, where every day Ernestine called me a disgrace to the family and Rosalind complained that I had ruined her life. And then one day, I ran away to take a look at the neighboring farm, and when Madley took me back home, he was instantly smitten with Rosalind's beauty. He was so infatuated that he befriended her bastard son in order to get closer to her, and he even adopted me legally when they got married." 

He smiled bitterly. "And foolish child that I was, I believed that if I was a good son to him, then someday he would truly come to love me instead of just being kind to me out of obligation."

"Mother never said anything about having a son before she got married," Laura protested weakly.

"Why would she?" Ash countered scornfully. "She never would have told you I existed at all if that senile woman at the general store hadn't let it slip." Laura bit her lip, falling silent, and Ash felt a sense of malicious satisfaction as he saw that she was beginning to believe him. 

"But even though my stepfather saved her from disgrace," Ash said, continuing his story, "Rosalind wasn't grateful. Instead, she resented that she had been forced to marry a Mudblood. You see, the Parkers always fancied themselves to be purebloods, although their own blood history was suspect, which was why my pureblood father refused to marry my mother. And when Madley saw that Rosalind looked down on him, he began to resent her as well. He demanded that she give him a child of his own blood, but she could not or would not get pregnant, and that infuriated him. He came to hate us both, but he took out his anger on me. He started drinking heavily, and when he got drunk, he would beat me."

"No," Laura whispered desperately, staring at him with pleading eyes that silently begged him to take back his words. "That isn't true."

"Every word of it is true," Ash taunted her. "If you don't believe me, ask the workers at the farm. I'm sure they'll lie and deny it, but you'll still be able to see the guilt in their eyes. I thought they were my friends, but they abandoned me when they saw that I had fallen out of favor with my stepfather. They pretended not to see the bruises on my face. Only one of them, a man named John, was honest enough to tell me straight out that he couldn't do anything to help me because he was afraid of losing his job."

"John?" Laura asked, sounding startled. "John Zeller? He's my friend Rosie's father...he was the only one who was willing to tell me even a little about you." Her eyes filled with sudden comprehension and horror as she whispered, "I couldn't understand why he sounded so guilty when he talked about you."

"My beloved stepfather beat me," Ash said almost triumphantly, taking pleasure in the look of horror and despair in his half-sister's eyes, even as a small part of him was disgusted by what he was doing. "He burned me." He pulled open his robe and shirt to expose the cigar burns on his chest. "He refused to send me to Hogwarts out of sheer spite. And my mother--dear, sweet, beautiful Rosalind--never said a word in my defense, never even once tried to stop him from hitting me."

"No," Laura whimpered, shaking her head frantically as tears streamed down her face. "No, he wouldn't...they wouldn't...they're good people, they love me...my father never even spanked me when I was little..."

The words "they're good people, they love me" filled Ash with a blinding fury that swept away any faint stirrings of guilt or pity that he might have felt for the girl. "Of course he'd never hit you," Ash sneered. "After all, you're his 'real' child, not some bastard brat that he never wanted in the first place. He told my mother, 'You're a whore who spread your legs for your pureblood lover, but you won't give me, your lawful husband, an heir?!'"

"Ash, that's enough!" 

"That was the night he cut open my face," Ash ranted, only dimly aware that Tsubasa was shouting at him angrily. "I ran away to hide in a cave in the woods, and I bled so badly that I thought I would die. That's why the werewolf found me, you know; it scented my blood. It attacked me and turned me, and I could hear Madley and some of the workers and townspeople searching for me the next day, and they said that the Ministry would put down the werewolf when they caught it, so I ran away to London because I thought they would kill me too when they discovered that I was a werewolf. So now, dear sister, do you understand why I never want to see my mother or stepfather again as long as I live?!"

Laura ran out of the room, sobbing, and the rage gradually receded enough for Ash to become aware that Tsubasa was shaking him by the shoulders and calling out his name. "Ash! Ash!" 

Ash blinked, and the crane man's face came into focus, full of anger and fear and concern, and Ash suddenly had the incongruous thought that Tsubasa was either very brave or very foolish to grab hold of a raging werewolf.

When he saw that Ash had calmed down, Tsubasa released him and said sarcastically, "You must be very proud of yourself, driving an innocent girl to tears."

Ash did feel ashamed when he thought about how he had treated Laura, but part of him wasn't sorry at all. "I just gave her what she asked for; I told her the truth," he retorted, then added defensively, "In fact, I did her a favor! I taught her that the world isn't always a nice place and that life isn't like a fairy tale. If she goes through life with that naive, trusting attitude, she's going to get burned sooner or later, by someone a lot less nice than I am."

"I'm sure that your motives were purely altruistic," Tsubasa replied, glaring at Ash sternly, his voice still filled with sarcasm. "But you didn't have to be so hard on her. She's only a child."

"Oh, and I suppose there's a nice way to tell someone that their father is a monster?" Ash snapped. "And besides, I was only twelve when I was turned and had to fend for myself on the streets of London. When I was her age, I was working for a living, stealing and scavenging and doing whatever I had to in order to survive! There were times when I picked food out of trash cans, and times when I went to bed hungry, while she is living in Hogwarts being fed meals prepared by house-elves!"

Tsubasa's expression softened slightly and he reached out to lay a hand on Ash's shoulder. "I know that it isn't fair," he said quietly. "But it isn't Laura's fault. She is not the one you should be angry at."

"Don't you think I know that?" Ash asked wearily. "I told you this meeting was a bad idea."

"Ash..." Tsubasa said helplessly.

"I'm sorry," Ash said, turning away to avoid meeting his eyes. "I think I'll skip our lesson today; I'm not really in the mood for it. I'll see you later." Then he quickly turned and walked out of the room before Tsubasa could stop him.

*** 

"Ash, wait," Tsubasa called out, but Ash was already gone. He heaved a sigh; things had gone even worse than he had expected. Ash had treated Laura cruelly, but Tsubasa could understand why he had lost his temper. It was bad enough that his parents had neglected and abused him, but it must have been like rubbing salt into already raw wounds to learn that his parents had treated their second child so lovingly.

 _It was my fault, too,_ Tsubasa thought to himself. He shouldn't have pushed Ash to meet with Laura, when Ash clearly hadn't wanted to. He could sympathize with Ash, but he couldn't truly understand what Ash had gone through, because child abuse was virtually unknown among his people. The crane folk were long-lived, and births were correspondingly rare, so each child born was regarded as precious. The crane folk were also gentle by nature, and none of them would ever raise a hand to a child in anger. And they were incredibly loyal; although Tsubasa had chosen to leave his homeland, he knew that he could return at any time, despite the strained relationship between himself and some of his kinfolk. 

He knew that even Kazuhiko would give him help and shelter if he asked for it, in spite of the fact that the crane nobleman feared and despised everything that Tsubasa represented: change from the traditional ways. Of course, Kazuhiko would probably be rather high-handed about it, but still, it would never even occur to him to turn a fellow clan member away, even a rebel like Tsubasa. And if the clan was ever in danger, Tsubasa would willingly lay his own life down for them--even ill-tempered, narrow-minded Kazuhiko. 

Tsubasa wondered if that was the true meaning of "family"--people who would take you in and stand by your side when you were in need, even if you didn't always get along with each other. Tsubasa had felt like a misfit among his own people for most of his life, but after hearing Ash's story, he thought of them more kindly now. He would probably still end up quarreling with them on his next visit home, but in a way, those arguments were borne out of love. The clan elders were like overprotective parents who were stubbornly certain that they knew what was right for their child, even though the child might have completely different ideas about what was right for him.

But Ash had never received even that frustrating, quarrelsome form of love from his parents. Tsubasa knelt down and picked up the broken book of fairy tales that Laura and Ash had left on the floor, forgotten. He looked at Ethan's name written on the inside cover, gently tracing his fingers over the letters, and he could almost feel the hope and joy that had gone into that childish scrawl. 

His heart ached in sympathy for that boy, who had wanted nothing more than to be loved by his parents, and also for the cynical man that the boy had become--a man who feared to love, because he didn't seem to believe that he was worthy of being loved. Tsubasa remembered how Ash had been afraid to reveal his scars the night they had made love, but the scars on his soul were far deeper than any of the superficial marks on his body. He wasn't sure if he was capable of healing Ash's wounds, and he wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to try.

But still, he found himself attempting to mend the book, because it had obviously once meant a great deal to Ash. He pressed the two broken halves of the book together and ran his finger down the spine. The outer binding was made of cloth, and it was child's play for a crane, even one as weak in Weaving magic as Tsubasa was, to cause the torn edges of the cloth to firmly knit together once again. A Reparo spell mended the inner spine, where the glue and cardboard had fallen apart, and although it wasn't quite as good as new, the book was whole and in slightly better condition than it had been before Ash had knocked it out of Laura's hand.

Tsubasa stared at the book in his hands and sighed, wishing that it would be as easy to mend things between Ash and his sister.

*** 

While Ash was meeting with Laura, Lupin was in Lukas's office, interviewing the other werewolf for his book. Originally, he had intended it to be mainly a history textbook, with a bit of biology and potions thrown in, to simply give the wizarding public the true facts about lycanthropy and clear up all the false rumors and stereotypes.

But after talking with Severus about the werewolf Death Eaters, Lupin thought that maybe it should be a biography of sorts as well. Reading a story written from a werewolf's point of view might well do more to promote understanding than a book full of dry facts. He wanted his readers to understand the fear and loneliness that most werewolves experienced, and he also wanted them to understand the bravery and strength of people like Lukas and his pack, who had managed to help each other and find friendship and love in spite of all the hardships they had suffered.

Lukas willingly shared his life story, although Lupin already knew most of it, but was hesitant to talk about the individual members of his pack. "It's a kind of pact between us, you see, that we won't ask each other about the past," Lukas explained. "People can volunteer that information if they wish, but most of us want to forget the past and begin a new life."

"I understand," Lupin replied. "But may I speak with those of your pack who are willing?"

Lukas hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "I'll tell them about your book, and tell those who are willing to contact you. I think that would be better than you going to them and asking for their life histories; some of us get a bit touchy about the past."

"I understand," Lupin repeated, smiling. "I don't wish to cause pain or stir up bad memories for anyone. But I think that this will help the human wizards to see us as people and individuals instead of faceless monsters."

"I suppose you're right," Lukas said with a shrug, still looking a bit skeptical. "You've certainly managed to charm the students at Hogwarts, at least."

"So have you," Lupin teased.

"I doubt that my Physical Defense students would agree with you," Lukas laughed good-naturedly. 

"Well, in the meantime, would you mind talking about the past with me?" Lupin asked with a smile.

"I thought that's what we were doing, Remus," Lukas replied, looking a little puzzled.

"No, I meant about a specific time in the past," Lupin said, his smile fading into a more solemn expression. "The last years of the first war, to be specific."

"Well, mostly we--the pack and I--were trying to lie low and avoid attracting the attention of either side," Lukas said, still looking puzzled. "What brought up this subject?"

"Severus and I were talking about the old days," Lupin replied. "He was telling me about a small pack of werewolves that worked for the Death Eaters, led by a man named Fenrir Greyback."

"He was the sort who gave the rest of us werewolves a bad name," Lukas said contemptuously, grimacing slightly.

"You knew him?" Lupin asked, startled.

"No, but I knew of him," Lukas replied. "I read about his exploits in the Daily Prophet, like everyone else, and word had spread on the street that he was looking to recruit other werewolves into the Death Eaters. He said that the Dark Lord had promised to grant the werewolves their freedom if they would fight for him, but I doubt that even Greyback really believed that Voldemort would keep his word. Personally, I think that he joined the Death Eaters simply because it gave him license to hunt and kill, and indulge his lust for blood."

"You say that you didn't know him, but you seem to know a lot about him," Lupin observed curiously.

"My information mostly comes secondhand," Lukas said, smiling bitterly. "Several members of my pack were turned by him. He is the reason why they lost their homes and jobs and families. And he's probably indirectly responsible for several more turnings in my pack. I can't prove it, but I suspect that many of the pack were bitten by werewolves created by Greyback."

"Oh," Lupin whispered, turning a little pale. He knew that Greyback had been an evil man, but he had underestimated the impact that the werewolf had made on so many lives. If what Lukas said was true, he had continued to hurt people even after he was dead, through the werewolves he had created. "I can feel some sympathy for werewolves who bit people unintentionally, since they were not in control of themselves at the time. Although perhaps they should have been more careful to restrain themselves during the full moon..." 

Lupin's voice trailed off as he guiltily recalled all the times that he had run free with the Marauders during the full moon. "There but for the grace of God go I," he murmured softly. "I must admit, I was a bit careless myself at times, but fortunately I was lucky and never bit anyone. But what Greyback did was unforgivable. Severus told me that he deliberately bit people, including at least one specific target that Voldemort wanted to bring into the Death Eaters."

"I've heard that he forced some of his victims to join his pack," Lukas said grimly. "In a way, it was fortunate that there was no Wolfsbane Potion back then, because Greyback wasn't in control of himself during the full moon, so some of his victims managed to flee from him, and some he wasn't even aware that he had turned."

"My memories of the full moon were always fuzzy at best without the potion," Lupin said. "Then again, I didn't particularly want to remember most of those nights. Greyback relished being a wolf and hurting people, so maybe his memories would have been stronger."

"I had recently begun to form my own pack back then," Lukas continued. "We were small in numbers, and we knew that we weren't strong enough to take on Greyback and the Death Eaters. And with Greyback causing a panic by attacking people, the Ministry was arresting any unregistered werewolves they came across, whether or not they were Death Eaters. Even werewolves who were purely victims, like the ones that Greyback turned, were taken into 'protective custody' if they were unlucky enough to be identified by the Ministry--supposedly for their own safety. We didn't want to be targeted by either side, so we were careful to keep our existence a secret. As far as Greyback or anyone else knew, we were just a bunch of human thieves and smugglers, no different from the rest of the scum in Knockturn Alley, and there was no reason for Voldemort to want to recruit us. As for the Ministry, they were too busy dealing with the Death Eaters to bother with a few petty thieves."

"But if Greyback had lived...?" Lupin mused thoughtfully.

"Then I suppose I would have had to fight him sooner or later," Lukas said. "We wouldn't have been able to hide from him forever, and he would have never have tolerated the existence of another pack in England; he would've seen us as a challenge to his authority. To be honest, I'm not sure if I could have beaten him. I fought many challengers before the pack fully accepted me as their leader, but Greyback was different from your typical werewolf. You and I often speak of embracing the wolf within, but Greyback embraced all of the curse--even the insanity and the berserker rage and the desire to kill, and that made him strong in a way that goes beyond physical strength. But I do know one thing." He growled softly, baring his teeth. "If we had fought, either I would have killed him or he would have killed me. I would never have submitted to the likes of Greyback."

"But if he had killed you, then your pack would have fallen under Greyback's control," Lupin said, turning pale at the thought.

"Well then, it's a good thing that I never had to fight him," Lukas said lightly, although there was still a feral gleam in his eyes. "You worry too much about things that will never happen, Lupin."

"I suppose you're right," Lupin agreed, laughing a little at his own fears. "Severus always says that I spend too much time thinking about what-ifs. I suppose that there are enough things in the present to worry about without wondering what might have happened if history had taken a different course."

Just then, Ash stalked into the office, a black expression on his face that seemed to hover somewhere between depression and anger, although his robes and shirt were hanging open, leaving his chest bare and somewhat distracting attention from his face. Lupin couldn't help but notice that there were a number of small round scars scattered across his chest.

"Finished your lesson with Tsubasa already?" Lukas asked with a wry smile, gazing pointedly at Ash's chest.

The other werewolf flushed and hastily buttoned up his shirt. "It's not what you think," he snarled, then grabbed a handful of Floo Powder and vanished through the fireplace before Lukas could say anything else.

"I guess he still hasn't made up with the crane," Lukas sighed. "He's been in a foul mood all weekend, or so the other wolves tell me."

"Did he and Tsubasa have a fight?" Lupin asked curiously, and his friend smiled at him.

"Why, were you planning to write a gossip column for the Daily Prophet?" Lukas joked.

Lupin laughed, a bit sheepishly. "I know that it's none of my business, but as Severus likes to say, a Gryffindor can't help poking his nose into other people's business. And I did happen to notice that Tsubasa never showed up for dinner in the Great Hall last Thursday night, which coincidentally, was the day he and Ash had a lesson." Lupin smiled slyly. "And I couldn't help but notice that Tsubasa looked a little...hmm...battered...the next morning. You and I both know that werewolves can be very...ah...enthusiastic lovers."

Lukas grinned without any embarrassment, exposing his sharp canine teeth. "Yeah, wolves like to play rough sometimes," he agreed. "I don't really know what happened between the two of them. Tsubasa showed up at the townhouse on Thursday night, saying that he needed to talk to Ash, only it sounds like they didn't really do much 'talking'. I wasn't there myself, but of course the other wolves told me all about it." 

Lukas grinned again, then frowned, looking puzzled and concerned. "So you would've thought Ash would be in a good mood, but he's been in a bad mood ever since that night. I just assumed that they had a lover's spat or something, and when Ash showed up for his lesson today, I thought that he was going to make up with Tsubasa, but I guess I was wrong. I don't suppose that you know anything about it, Remus?" 

Lupin shook his head. "All I know is what I just told you. Tsubasa doesn't seem to be in a bad mood, but I'm not sure that I'd be able to tell if he was. He has very good control over his emotions, almost as much as Severus."

"I wonder what they fought about?" Lukas muttered to himself, tipping his chair back and casually resting his feet on his desk as he frowned up at the ceiling thoughtfully. 

Lupin smiled as he imagined how McGonagall would react if she saw that; she had once docked points from James for doing the exact same thing in class when they had been students, and he didn't think that Lukas being a fellow teacher would soften her reaction in the slightest. If anything, she would probably be more severe on him, saying that a teacher needed to set a good example for his students. His smile grew wider as he pictured the fierce werewolf leader being scolded like a misbehaving first-year student.

Fortunately for Lupin, the other werewolf was too preoccupied to notice his smile. "Ash has never been in a serious relationship before," Lukas said to the ceiling. "He doesn't have much experience with this sort of thing."

"Really?" Lupin asked. "I've heard that he's quite the playboy."

Lukas blinked, as if suddenly recalling Lupin's presence, and settled his chair back down on all four legs, swinging his feet off the desk. "There's a difference between casual sex and a serious relationship," he said dryly. "Having experience with the first doesn't necessarily translate into being good at the latter."

"No, I suppose not," Lupin said agreeably. "But I've never been one for casual affairs myself. Severus has always been the only one that I've desired."

Lukas rolled his eyes and said, "If you can say things like that with a straight face, you ought to be writing romance novels instead of textbooks." Lupin just laughed, and Lukas said more seriously, "Ash is an adult, and I suppose that he has to work this out for himself, but still, I'm worried about him."

"You're very protective of your pack, aren't you?" Lupin asked with a smile.

"Yes, but Ash especially," Lukas replied. "I suppose it's because I found him and brought him into the pack when he was only a child." He smiled, the normally fierce and feral expression on his face softening into something more tender. "As young as he was, he was stubbornly determined to survive, despite everything he had suffered, when many adults who are turned lose their will to live and either commit suicide or kill themselves more slowly by drowning their sorrows in drugs or alcohol. That's why I've always been more protective of Ash than the wolves who joined my pack as adults. I've always thought of him as my little brother, almost like a son, although I'm not really old enough to be his father." He sighed. "I know I shouldn't meddle, but...you seem to be friendly with Tsubasa, Remus..." 

"Meddling is what we Gryffindors do best," Lupin said, grinning. "I'll see what I can find out."

*** 

Laura ran sobbing from the Physical Defense classroom. She had imagined that her reunion with Ethan would end in tears, but she had thought they would be tears of joy, with she and her long-lost brother embracing at last. She had thought that he would be happy to go back home to his family.

She had never in her wildest dreams imagined that he would tell her horrible stories about her mother having a child out of wedlock, or about a vicious, cruel stepfather who seemed nothing like the stern but loving father that Laura knew. And yet...she didn't believe that Ash Randolf was lying, at least not deliberately. Laura was no mind-reader, but the pain in his eyes when he had seen the book of fairy tales, and the anger in his voice when he had shouted about his stepfather had seemed genuine.

Surely this must all be some kind of misunderstanding! Laura couldn't picture her father brutally beating and nearly killing a child, even if Ethan hadn't been his real son. But it was difficult to imagine how Ethan/Ash could be mistaken about such a thing; the scars on his face and his body were certainly real, and proof that someone had hurt him. If not Father, then who...?

Laura desperately tried to come up with some plausible explanation that would not make her father a monster or her brother a liar. The monthly transformations caused temporary insanity in werewolves if they didn't take the Wolfsbane Potion, and it had only been invented a few years ago. Maybe the initial attack and the subsequent transformations had traumatized Ethan and caused him to believe that Father was somehow to blame.

Only...Professor Lupin was also a werewolf, and he didn't seem to suffer from any similar delusions. Or maybe someone had cast a Memory Charm on Ethan to alter his memories and make him think that Father had hurt him. But that sounded pretty far-fetched, like something out of one of Ariel Zoltaire's adventure novels. Who would want to alter Ethan's memories and turn him against his own family? Mother and Father didn't have any enemies that Laura knew of; Father had a few business rivals, perhaps, but no one who would go so far as to attack his children. 

Laura didn't know what kind of enemies her brother might have made as Ash Randolf, though. The werewolves had fought against the Death Eaters, but the Death Eaters were all dead or in prison, and anyway, a Death Eater would be much more likely to use a Killing Curse to take revenge than a Memory Charm. There were other people, like Amos Diggory, who might have grudges against the werewolves, but again, she couldn't see why they would have used a Memory Charm instead of something more destructive.

And even if someone had altered Ethan's memories, that still didn't explain where his scars had come from. Laura thought that perhaps they had been inflicted by the werewolf who had turned him, then remembered that Professor Lupin had told his classes that werewolves usually healed wounds quickly, without any scars forming. Although she had a vague recollection that wounds inflicted by silver weapons were difficult to heal...

Without really thinking about it, Laura had instinctively headed towards the Hufflepuff dorm when she fled the Physical Defense classroom. Her vision still blurry with tears, she was running through the halls half-blindly when she suddenly ran into something warm and solid--or rather, someone.

Laura tumbled to the floor, while the person she had run into staggered backwards, uttering a startled but blistering curse. Just her luck; of all the people in Hogwarts to run into, it had to be Professor Snape!

Snape managed to reach out and brace his hand against the wall to keep his balance, although he dropped some packages that he had been carrying. He glared down at Laura, who still lay sprawled out on the floor at his feet, and snapped, "Five points off Hufflepuff for running in the halls, Miss Madley!"

Her nerves already frayed from the confrontation with her brother, Laura burst into tears and started sobbing again.

"Miss Madley?" Snape asked in a milder voice, sounding annoyed but also a little concerned. "Are you injured or ill?" Laura shook her head. "Then stop that caterwauling, you stupid girl!" the Potions Master snapped, his voice shifting back from concerned to fully annoyed. "There's no need to make such a fuss about five measly points!"

"I'm s-s-sorry, Professor!" Laura barely managed to choke the syllables out between sobs. "It's n-not that."

*** 

Snape glared down at Laura Madley, then heaved a sigh of exasperation. The day was turning out to be a very trying one for the Potions Master. First, one of the second-year students had managed to accidentally blow up a cauldron in the middle of Potions class, and several students had suffered minor burns. To make matters worse, the culprit had been a Slytherin, Patrick Parkinson, and Snape had been forced to take points from his own House. The idiot boy had been showing off, trying to impress his pretty Ravenclaw classmate, Gabrielle Delacour.

Snape cursed under his breath; he'd known that her veela blood was going to cause trouble, but he had hoped that the trouble wouldn't start until she and her yearmates were in their teens. However, the boys were already beginning to vie for her attention at age twelve, and he hated to imagine what things were going to be like when she was fifteen or sixteen.

And now to top it all off, he had an hysterical Hufflepuff girl sobbing at his feet. If Lupin found him here with the girl wailing like this, he would never hear the end of it. He would have to endure a sanctimonious lecture about how he didn't need to terrorize the students in order to keep discipline, and it was completely unfair because--at least in this case--he hadn't done anything to deserve it. All he'd done was to take five points from her; Miss Madley was usually a sensible girl and not the sort to burst into tears over something like that. In fact, she was normally too well-behaved to be running in the halls in the first place.

"Is something wrong, Miss Madley?" Snape asked cautiously. If it was something silly like a fight with a boyfriend, he didn't really want to hear about it, and he doubted that she would want to confide in him, anyway. He began to wish that Lupin was here, after all, since he was much better at comforting distraught students than Snape was.

In response, the girl started crying even louder, which made Snape feel like an ogre--again, undeservedly so. He wondered if he ought to take her with him to the hospital wing, but since she wasn't showing any indication that she was going to get up off the floor of her own volition, he'd have to physically haul her there, and if Pomfrey saw the girl in this condition, then she, like Lupin, would automatically assume that Snape was to blame, and he'd have to endure another lecture.

He glanced down the hall, half-hoping to see Lupin so that he could pass this problem on to someone else, even if it meant receiving an undeserved lecture. He did spot someone, and although it wasn't Lupin, his eyes fell on her with relief.

"Miss Avery!" he snapped imperiously, and Serafina Avery came to a halt in front of him.

"Yes, Professor?" she asked politely, not seeming at all curious or perturbed by the fact that there was a student lying on the floor at Snape's feet, sobbing her heart out.

"Miss Madley seems to be in some distress," Snape replied. In a way, this was even better than running into Lupin. Serafina was one of his Slytherins, so he could dump his problem in her lap without being questioned or lectured, and Serafina, who was calm to the point of almost being emotionless, wasn't likely to be bothered by Miss Madley's hysterics.

"Calm her down and escort her to the Hufflepuff dormitory," Snape ordered. "I need to deliver some healing herbs and potions to Madam Pomfrey." He picked up and examined his fallen packages. "Fortunately, nothing seems to be broken."

"Yes, sir," Serafina replied obediently, and Snape gratefully fled in the direction of the hospital wing.

*** 

"Are you all right?" a dispassionate voice asked, and Laura wiped her eyes on her sleeve and looked up to see Serafina Avery gazing down at her. Serafina's face was bland and expressionless as always, as if she did not find it at all strange that Laura was lying on the floor, weeping. Then again, the sight of Snape driving students to tears was hardly an unusual one at Hogwarts.

And the Slytherin girl did indeed seem to assume that Laura was crying because Snape had yelled at her. "Don't take it personally," Serafina said almost kindly, although her voice was still calm and remote. "The Professor's in a bad mood today. One of the second-years managed to blow up a cauldron and make a mess of the Potions classroom, so he's been docking points from just about anyone who crosses his path."

"It's not because of Snape," Laura sniffled.

"Oh," said Serafina, sounding only mildly curious. She knelt down on the floor beside Laura and offered her a handkerchief. Laura cautiously took it and wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Serafina had a reputation for being strange; she had few friends, even among the Slytherins, and her violet eyes were always cold and emotionless. She didn't go out of her way to bully or harass people like some of her housemates did, but people who crossed her tended to become the victims of nasty hexes, although there was rarely any evidence to prove that Serafina was to blame. 

One of those victims had been a Hufflepuff, but to be fair, the boy had provoked her by hexing a bottle of ink to explode at her desk. The incident had occurred during Laura's third year, the year that had led up to the final battle between the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters--and between Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort. Tensions had been running high, and Serafina was the daughter of a known Death Eater, while the Hufflepuff boy was a half-blood whose Muggle-born uncle had been killed during the first war.

So although Serafina wasn't completely to blame, the Hufflepuffs had regarded her warily ever since then. But the Slytherin girl didn't look as if she intended to hex Laura; she had offered Laura a handkerchief, which was a kind gesture, and she was waiting patiently for Laura to compose herself.

"Thank you," Laura finally said, when she had finished drying her eyes. She tucked the sodden, crumpled handkerchief into her pocket and added, "I'll wash this and return it to you later."

Serafina just nodded indifferently, as if she didn't care whether the handkerchief was returned or not. She stood up and held out her hand to Laura; Laura took it and allowed the other girl to help her to her feet. "Shall I take you to your dorm now?" Serafina asked.

Suddenly Laura realized that she didn't really want to go to the dorm, after all. None of her friends but Rosie even knew that she had a brother, so she couldn't really talk to them about what had happened. Her first impulse was to cry on Rosie's shoulder, but she knew that her best friend hadn't really approved of her search for her lost brother. Rosie was too kind to say "I told you so" out loud, but she would probably be thinking that Laura should have left well enough alone and accepted her parents' explanation of her brother's death.

Laura shook her head, and Serafina asked in a calm, logical voice, "Well, what do you want do, then?"

That made Laura stop and think. What did she want to do? Well, she wanted to find out if Ethan's...if Ash Randolf's story was true. Or, to be honest, she wanted to find proof that it was false, and that he had somehow been misled into believing those horrible things about their parents. But how could she possibly go to her mother and ask if she'd given birth to an illegitimate child, or ask her father if he'd beaten his son?

"How can I find out the truth?" Laura wondered.

She had been thinking out loud rather than speaking to Serafina, but the other girl replied, "Well, it depends on what kind of truth you want to find out, but I'd suggest that you do some research."

"Research?" Laura asked, startled.

Serafina nodded. "What exactly are you trying to find out?"

Laura hesitated. She needed help from someone, and she didn't want to ask Rosie. Serafina had been kind to her, but she was reluctant to entrust her secret to someone she barely knew. "Will you promise not to tell anyone?"

Serafina paused to consider the question, then answered gravely, "I won't repeat what you tell me to anyone, so long as doing so will not cause harm or dishonor to myself, my family, my House, and my friends."

That wasn't exactly a definite promise of secrecy, although with the way she had worded it, it was difficult to object. Still, the fact that she had placed conditions on her promise seemed to indicate that she intended to keep it as long as those conditions were met. If she had intended to break her word, she probably would have blithely and carelessly promised not to tell.

Laura didn't see how her family's secret would cause any harm to Serafina, but she decided to err on the side of caution and not mention any names. "How would I be able to find out if...um...a certain person had a child before they married their current spouse? And how would I find out if that child was the spouse's natural child or if he--or she--had been adopted?"

Serafina raised her eyebrows, a spark of curiosity flaring in her violet eyes. But she did not press for more information and merely replied, "For a formal adoption, there are papers that have to be filed with the Ministry of Magic."

"But I can't just go to the Ministry and ask to see them," Laura said, crestfallen. "I can't leave Hogwarts, for one thing."

"And even if you could, they wouldn't show the forms to you without the proper authorizations," Serafina agreed. "But marriage and birth announcements are printed in the Daily Prophet. Adoptions aren't always publicized, but sometimes they are, especially if a child is being adopted as the heir of a clan, the way that Professor Snape adopted Theodore."

Yes, of course! She could go to the library and look up back issues of the Daily Prophet--there would surely be a wedding announcement for her parents, and if Ethan was their real child, there should be a birth announcement some time after the wedding. And then Laura realized that she didn't know the exact date that her parents had gotten married. It had never seemed very important, since her parents never celebrated their wedding anniversary, but she vaguely knew that they had been married for several years before she was born. Well, if Ethan had been twelve when he had supposedly died, about a year before Laura's birth, that would make him about twenty-eight now. She could start from there and work either forwards or backwards.

"Thank you, Serafina!" Laura exclaimed gratefully. "Thank you so much!"

Serafina gave her a bemused smile in return; she was actually very pretty when she smiled, something Laura had never noticed before. "You're welcome," Serafina replied. "Professor Snape said I was to take you to your dorm, but since you seem to be feeling better, I suppose there's no harm in going to the library instead."

So Serafina insisted on escorting her to the library, although Laura said that she would be fine on her own. She got the impression that the Slytherin girl wanted to follow the intent of Snape's orders, if not quite obeying them to the letter. 

"Will you be all right?" Serafina asked when they arrived at the library.

"Yes, thank you very much, Serafina," Laura replied. As Serafina turned to leave, Laura asked, "Aren't you going to ask who I'm doing the research on?"

Serafina shrugged indifferently. "What's the point, since you obviously want to keep it a secret?"

"It's just that most people would be curious about it," Laura said. She knew that if her Hufflepuff friends were here, they would be pestering her to tell them her secret. Hufflepuffs tended to believe they ought to share everything with their friends, because of the loyalty that was their House trait. And Laura did trust her friends, but this was something that she wasn't ready to share with anyone just yet.

"I am curious about it," Serafina admitted. "But either you'll tell me or you won't, so there's no point in making a fuss about it."

Serafina Avery might be a little odd, but Laura was beginning to like her very much, and she felt a little ashamed that she had so easily believed the gossip about Serafina's sinister reputation. Professor Lupin had told the students many times that they should be more open-minded and not judge people by their Houses, and Laura tried to follow his advice, but it was easy to slip back into old habits. 

She was friendly with a few Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, but her best friends were all Hufflepuffs. And she had no friends at all among the Slytherins; a few of them had made disparaging remarks about her Muggle-born father when she first started going to Hogwarts, but for the most part they ignored her, and she did likewise. Even if they didn't call her names or insult her directly, it was difficult for a half-blood like Laura to feel friendly towards people who generally believed in pureblood superiority.

But the Slytherins had grown slightly less snobbish when Professor Lupin had moved in with their Head of House, and Serafina had certainly been nice to her today. So Laura smiled shyly and said, "I can't tell you about it right now, but when I'm able to, I will." She was still hoping to reconcile her brother with her parents, and if her efforts were successful, there would no longer be any need to keep his identity a secret.

"All right," Serafina said amiably, then left without further comment, and Laura went to look through the newspaper archive in the library. 

The huge stacks of yellowed newspapers were rather daunting, but Laura determinedly went through them, starting about thirty years back, figuring that her parents would probably have been married for at least a year or two before their first child was born. However, there were no marriage announcements, and no birth announcements, either, not even when she reached the year that Ethan would have been born. 

Finally, she found a marriage announcement for her parents in a paper printed twenty-two years ago, which meant that Ethan would have been about six at the time. Which also meant that unless her parents had delayed getting married after their child was born for some reason, Ash had been telling the truth about being her father's stepson.

She numbly continued flipping through the newspaper, and found the proof of it in the very same issue, buried in the page of legal notices that printed things like changes of names, changes in ownership of land or property, and notifications of lawsuits being filed. There, in small print near the bottom of the page, was a sentence that Laura nearly overlooked amidst all the other notices: "The Ministry of Magic hereby grants Alden Madley's petition to adopt Ethan Parker, who shall henceforth be known as Ethan Madley and be granted all the rights and privileges of a legal son."

So it was true, after all. Ethan wasn't her father's son. And since his surname had been the same as their mother's maiden name, he probably had been illegitimate, as he had claimed. If Mother had been married and then widowed before meeting Father, there would have been no reason for them to keep that first marriage a secret. A divorce, on the other hand, would have been more scandalous, and they might have wanted to hide the knowledge of a failed first marriage, but in either case, Ethan should have been using the surname of his father before his adoption.

And if Ash...Laura's train of thought drifted off for a moment as she realized that she was thinking of the adult werewolf as "Ash" instead of "Ethan," because he did not fit the fantasy image of the brother she had created in her head. And maybe that wasn't Ash's fault, but she felt as if she had lost her brother a second time, in a way that was somehow even more painful than believing that he was dead.

Anyway, if Ash had been telling the truth about his birth, was he also telling the truth about the way that Mother and Father had treated him? Laura wanted to weep, but she felt too numb and drained, as if she had already wept so much that she had no more tears to shed.

She skipped ahead about six years, and eventually found a small article saying that a boy had been killed by a werewolf in her home village--or actually, it said that the boy was missing and presumed dead. The boy's name had not been released by the Ministry, at the request of his family, but Laura knew that it must be Ethan. At least, she thought to herself bitterly, her parents had told the truth about that. They might have lied about everything else, but it did seem that everyone had really believed that Ethan was dead.

The article said that the werewolf had been apprehended in the next county, and the amount of blood on his clothing left little doubt that his victim was dead, even though the body had not been found. The werewolf claimed to be remorseful, and freely confessed to attacking and killing the boy. At least, that was what the Ministry reported to the Daily Prophet. Laura wondered, with uncharacteristic cynicism, if the Ministry had applied pressure to "encourage" the werewolf to confess. In any case, the werewolf had been given a life sentence in Azkaban for his crime.

Laura had learned all that she could from the newspapers; if her father had abused his son--or his stepson, rather--he would hardly have reported it to the Daily Prophet. So she put away the newspapers, making sure to stack them neatly and in order so that Madam Pince wouldn't scold her. She was acting mainly out of reflex; she didn't particularly care at the moment whether a teacher yelled at her or gave her detention. 

She knew that Rosie would tell her to drop the matter, to just forget about Ethan and Ash. But she couldn't just forget about her brother and pretend that everything was normal, no matter how much she would have liked to. If Ash had been wronged by their parents, she had to find some way to make it up to him, although she had no idea how she would do such a thing. And part of her was still hoping that this was all a terrible misunderstanding and that her parents would say that of course they loved Ethan and wanted him to come home.

So quickly, before she lost her nerve, she wrote a letter to her parents explaining how she had met Ash and what he had told her. She didn't mention what John and Rosie had told her about Ethan, of course; she said only that she had found the photo and the book of fairy tales in the attic, and that she had guessed his identity from the picture. She begged them to tell her the truth, and to reconcile with Ethan/Ash so that they could all be a family again. Then, because she didn't have an owl of her own, she went to the Owlery and sent the letter off with one of the school owls.

Laura had been so absorbed in her research and her troubled thoughts that she didn't realize until she left the Owlery that it was dark and she had completely missed dinner. When she got back to the dorm, she found that Rosie was frantic with worry.

"Where have you been?!" her friend cried. "I've been looking all over for you! I got so worried when you didn't come to dinner!"

"I'm sorry," Laura said dully. "I was working in the library and lost track of time."

Rosie looked at her more closely, and her expression softened, although she still looked worried. She took Laura by the hand and led her to their bedroom; fortunately their roommates were out and they had the room to themselves. Rosie said quietly, "I've been waiting to hear how your meeting with your brother went. Your eyes look red, so I guess it didn't go so well?"

And suddenly, Laura found herself able to cry again, and she wept on Rosie's shoulder while her friend held her and tried to comfort her. When she calmed down, she explained what had happened, and Rosie was sympathetic up until the point where she had sent the letter to her parents.

"How could you do that?!" Rosie shouted, looking horrified. "You promised you wouldn't tell your parents!"

"I promised that I wouldn't say anything until I found out whether or not Ash Randolf really was my brother," Laura reminded her. "And he is, even if he doesn't want to be."

"But they'll fire Dad if they find out that he and I talked to you about Ethan!" Rosie cried frantically.

"Of course I didn't mention you or your father," Laura said indignantly. "I promised that I wouldn't, and I would never break my promise to you. I told them that I found Ethan's picture in the attic and did some research in the Daily Prophet. There's no reason for them to think that you told me anything."

"But what if they figure it out?" Rosie fretted, not looking at all reassured. "And I don't understand why you're writing to them, anyway. This Ash says that he wants nothing to do with your family, so what's the point?"

"He's my brother," Laura said stubbornly. "That's the point. He's family. I have to find some way to make things right between him and my parents. Surely Father couldn't have been so cruel, even if Ash wasn't his real son. There must be some kind of misunderstanding."

"Oh, Laura," Rosie sighed, looking both sad and a bit exasperated. "Sometimes you're so naive."

"Well, do you think my father could have beat Ash...Ethan...and cut his face open?" Laura demanded.

Rosie turned away, not meeting her eyes. "No," she mumbled, not very convincingly. "But if Ethan was his stepson and not his real son, maybe they didn't get along. They might not want to reconcile. Not every story has a happy ending, Laura."

"This one will," Laura said, with more desperation than true belief. "It has to."

Rosie sighed again and shook her head. She picked up a small cloth bundle from her desk and handed it to Laura, saying, "Here, I saved some food for you since you missed dinner."

Laura unwrapped the napkin, which was filled with rolls split and stuffed with slices of roast beef, as well as an apple and a slightly squashed cupcake. "Thank you, Rosie," she said, touched by the gesture although she didn't have much of an appetite right now.

"You're welcome," Rosie replied, managing a small smile, but her eyes were still sad and anxious.

*** 

Lupin did not start meddling right away, which he felt showed admirable restraint on his part. Instead, he tried to gauge Tsubasa's mood at dinner. The new Professor did not seem at all upset, and chatted pleasantly with the other teachers during the meal. But then again, as Lupin had told Lukas, Tsubasa had good control over his emotions, and he wouldn't necessarily show it if he was upset--he would probably be good at Occlumency. And come to think of it, Lupin had no idea what Tsubasa had studied at Salem besides Transfiguration; for all he knew, the crane man might really be an Occlumens.

He did notice that Severus seemed to be in a bad mood, which was not at all surprising. "I heard about the incident in your second-year Potions class," Lupin told his lover sympathetically.

"That idiot Parkinson was showing off for that veela girl," Snape grumbled.

"She's only part veela," Lupin reminded him.

"Thank Merlin!" Snape growled. "It's bad enough as it is; I'd never be able to get the male students to concentrate in class if she were a full-blooded veela."

"Well, most of the male students, anyway," Lupin conceded with a smile. "I imagine that there are a few who wouldn't be affected by Gabrielle's veela charm." The Potions Master just scowled at him in response, and Lupin patted his hand and said soothingly, "Perhaps you should give out a few detentions, Severus. It might cheer you up."

"Then he should be quite cheery already, Remus," Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling mischievously. "He's deducted a record amount of points today, so I hear, and given out several detentions." Snape glowered at him fiercely, but the Headmaster just chuckled good-naturedly and winked at him.

"You could help me with my research tonight, Severus," Lupin whispered into his lover's ear. "Perhaps that would help take your mind off unruly students."

"Yes, your research tends to be rather...distracting," Snape agreed in a dry voice, his scowl easing into a sardonic smile. "Very well, Lupin." 

"You've been working very hard on your book, Remus," Dumbledore said, his eyes still twinkling.

"I think it's important for a textbook to be well-researched," Lupin said demurely.

Snape rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath, "This will probably be the most well-researched book in the history of the wizarding world."

After dinner, Lupin decided to have a word with Tsubasa. "Go on ahead, Severus," he said as everyone started to file out of the Great Hall. "I'll meet you in a few minutes; I just need to ask Tsubasa something."

"Meddling again, Lupin?" Snape asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, but this time I have permission," Lupin replied with a grin, and hurried after Tsubasa, leaving the Potions Master staring after him with a rather perplexed expression on his face.

"Excuse me, Tsubasa," Lupin called out, and the other man stopped and turned to face him.

"Yes, Remus?" Tsubasa asked politely.

"I happened to be talking with Lukas in his office when Ash left, and we couldn't help but notice that he seemed to be upset about something," Lupin replied. "I know that it's none of my business, but..."

Tsubasa sighed, a bit wearily. "Why do people always say 'it's none of my business' when they're about to pry into your business anyway?"

Lupin smiled at him apologetically. "Yes, well, normally I wouldn't," he said as Tsubasa gave him a skeptical look. "But you see, Lukas is protective of all his pack members, and Ash in particular, and he was worried--"

"Why does everyone assume that it's my fault Ash is upset?" Tsubasa interrupted, sounding rather offended.

Lupin suppressed a smile of amusement; so Professor Tsubasa was in a bad mood, after all. In a way, that was a good sign, because it was the people that you cared about who were able to get under your skin and annoy you the most. Arguments with people you were indifferent to weren't nearly as vexing. Or maybe it was just that Lupin was used to living with a quarrelsome Potions Master, so he'd come to associate irritability with affection.

"Actually, I think it's more the other way around," Lupin said placatingly. "Lukas said that Ash doesn't have much experience with relationships, so I think he was assuming that Ash was probably at fault."

"Oh," Tsubasa said sheepishly.

"So I don't know exactly what's happened between you," Lupin continued, "but I hope that the two of you will be able to patch things up. Again, it's none of my business--" He grinned impishly, and Tsubasa smiled slightly in response. "--but if there's anything I can do to help..."

"I thank you for your good intentions, Remus," Tsubasa said, with another weary little sigh. "But I am afraid that there's nothing you can do. Ash has to work this out for himself. And by the way, it's not what you think."

"Excuse me?" Lupin asked.

"I mean that Ash is not upset because of me," Tsubasa replied. Then he reconsidered and admitted reluctantly, "Well, perhaps a little. But that's not that main reason."

"Then what is?" Lupin asked curiously.

"If you want to know that, you and Lukas will have to ask Ash," Tsubasa said firmly.

"Can't you just give me a little hint?" Lupin wheedled, flashing his most charming smile at Tsubasa.

However, the other teacher was unmoved. "Sharing something that Ash told me in confidence without his permission would be a betrayal of his trust," Tsubasa said, sounding a little annoyed.

"Of course I wouldn't want you to betray a confidence," Lupin said hastily. "But Lukas really is worried. Perhaps if you could just give us an idea of how serious this mysterious problem is--"

"Remus," Tsubasa said, in a tone of patience sorely being tested; Lupin found it familiar because Severus used it on him quite often, although his voice usually had a much more scathing ring to it than Tsubasa's. "With all due respect, this is none of your business, so please butt out."

"Um..." Lupin said hesitantly. He wasn't familiar with that last phrase--an Americanism, he assumed--but its implied meaning was certainly clear enough.

"To put it in British terms," Tsubasa said in an exasperated voice, "bugger off, Lupin!" Then he turned on his heel and stalked away.

"Oh!" Lupin exclaimed with a startled laugh, more amused than offended. Most of his Japanese acquaintances were exquisitely polite, and even when they expressed disapproval, they tended to be subtle and indirect about it. Tsubasa must have picked up his bluntness during the years he had spent living with the tengu, or perhaps from his human classmates at Salem.

Lupin felt a little guilty that he'd upset Tsubasa, but again, he thought it was a good sign, because Tsubasa wouldn't be so touchy about the subject if he didn't care for Ash. But Lupin wondered what was troubling Ash if it wasn't a lover's spat.

Lupin headed to the dungeon, lost in thought. Well, since the direct approach had failed, he'd have to go the indirect route. Sirius and Harry often had lunch with Ash at the Ministry, so maybe they might have noticed if something was bothering him. In fact, it was possible that the problem could be some incident that had happened at work; there were many people who were opposed to having a werewolf on the Ministry staff. 

He decided to contact Sirius through the Floo when he got back to his quarters. And he would have to apologize to Tsubasa and try to smooth things over with him tomorrow. Fortunately, he didn't think that the crane man was the type to hold a grudge.

"You certainly took your time, Lupin," Snape said in a low, sarcastic drawl when Lupin arrived at their dungeon quarters. "Are you meddling in things that are none of your concern again?"

"But Lukas asked me to," Lupin protested innocently.

"Lukas asked you to play matchmaker for one of his wolves?" Snape asked skeptically.

"No, he asked me to find out what's bothering Ash," Lupin replied. "I was hoping that Tsubasa could help me with that."

"I see," Snape said. "But don't forget that Tsubasa is a master swordsman. Is Lukas going to protect you if the crane gets a bit testy and decides to lop off that Gryffindor nose of yours because you stuck it where it doesn't belong? Or any of your other appendages, for that matter?" Snape's eyes slowly traveled down Lupin's body from head to toe in a deliberately lewd manner, resting their gaze pointedly on Lupin's crotch for a moment before moving on. "Because I believe that I prefer you with all your appendages intact."

Lupin decided that he could wait until tomorrow to talk to Sirius. "Why Severus," he said coyly, batting his eyelashes playfully. "Sometimes you say the most romantic things."

"This isn't romance, Lupin," Snape purred, with a wicked gleam in his black eyes that made Lupin forget all about meddling and matchmaking. "This is research."

"And what should we research tonight, Severus?" Lupin murmured, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around his lover.

"How about the length of time it will take a certain werewolf to beg me to ravish him?" Snape whispered into Lupin's ear. "Or perhaps the length of time it will take to make that werewolf howl?"

The answer to the first question was approximately three minutes. It took somewhat longer to make the wolf howl, but by then, neither of them was counting.

*** 

Alden Madley swore and crumpled Laura's letter in his fist while his wife burst into tears. Ethan had been trouble since the first day he had met the boy; in fact, if it hadn't been for Ethan, he would not be dealing with this problem right now. If Ethan hadn't run away from home and decided to steal a few apples from his orchard, Alden would not have taken the mischievous little boy back home, and he would never have met and married Rosalind--and he would not be sitting here right now wondering what to do about a werewolf stepson who had miraculously returned from the dead.

Alden had been so bewitched by Rosalind's beauty that he hadn't minded adopting her bastard son. Ethan had been a charming child, and Alden had actually been fond of him in an offhand way. The boy had worked beside him almost every day at the farm, and he had proven himself to be intelligent--Alden never had to explain anything to him more than once--and hardworking, and even at his young age, he had shown signs of becoming a very promising mage. Alden had even thought that he wouldn't mind making Ethan his heir and turning the farm over to him someday, if he and Rosalind didn't have any children of their own.

Until he had realized that his beloved wife didn't really love him. Alden had been besotted, but he had not taken full leave of his senses; he had known that Rosalind was not so much in love with him as she was with the prospect of escaping the guardianship of her sour old aunt. Still, he would have been content with simple gratitude and affection, and he had believed that if he was a good husband to Rosalind and a good father to her son, that she would come to love him in time.

But not only did she not love him, she wasn't even grateful that he had rescued her from exile and disgrace. She pretended to be at first, but as time went by, it became clear that she resented him and felt that she had married beneath herself by marrying a Muggle-born, even though her own blood purity was rather questionable. After all, if she had been a true pureblood, then Ethan's father probably would not have abandoned her.

Alden had thought, in a vague sort of way, that it would be nice if he and Rosalind had a child of their own, but he hadn't been particularly concerned about it until he felt his wife slipping away from him, and then that desire suddenly became more urgent. A child might bring them closer together, and if not, at least it made him equal with the pureblood lover she had borne a son to. After all, a wife owed her husband a legitimate heir. 

But months and years had gone by, with no sign of a baby, and Alden had wondered if she might be secretly defying him by using a charm or potion to prevent conception. She had sworn that she wasn't, but by this point, veiled resentment had grown into outright hostility, and she had made it quite clear that she was only enduring his attentions in bed as her wifely duty, and not out of any desire or affection on her part. 

And it became harder and harder for Alden to look at his stepson without seeing Rosalind's unnamed lover in his face. Aside from his hazel eyes, Ethan had not looked very much like his mother; his features were sharper, and his hair darker and straighter--all of those traits must have been inherited from his father. And soon, Alden had been unable to look at the boy without being filled with jealousy and rage.

He had vented his anger and frustration on his stepson, whose very presence had seemed like a mocking reminder of all the things that Rosalind refused to give him: her love, her loyalty, and a child of his own. But still, he had never intended to kill Ethan.

He had been very drunk that night, and had gone into a worse rage than usual when Rosalind had called him a Mudblood. He had struck Ethan with a whiskey bottle, and had not been fully aware of what he was doing until he had suddenly come to his senses and seen his stepson lying on the floor covered in blood--and then realized that he was holding the broken, bloodstained bottle in his hand. 

He had realized that he had gone too far, but the boy had fled while Alden was still too stunned to stop him. He had searched for the boy the next morning, but had been unable to find him. Ethan had spent much of his childhood playing in the woods, and he had known it almost as well as the animals that lived there, which meant that it had been impossible to find him when he didn't want to be found.

Alden had grown increasingly worried when Ethan did not return home that day, nor the next, nor the day after that--not just for the boy's sake, but for his own. A few bruises could be overlooked by the townsfolk, but open gashes on a child's face and arms were much harder to ignore or explain away, and might well be brought to the attention of the authorities.

So when Ethan had fallen victim to the werewolf--or so everyone had assumed--Alden had felt horrified and guilty, but also a little relieved. The boy could not bear testimony against him if he was dead, and even if his body was found, the cuts on his face and arms could be passed off as claw or bite marks. However, the older healed burn marks on his chest might be difficult to explain away if anyone noticed them, so Alden hadn't pressed too hard for the recovery of his son's body. 

They had searched the woods for a couple of days, of course, because it would have been suspicious otherwise, but once it became apparent that Ethan must be dead, especially in light of the werewolf's confession, Alden had called off the search, allowing everyone to think that he would prefer to remember his son as he had been, and not have to view the boy's mangled body.

Rosalind had mourned her son's death, weeping hysterically, although she had never shown him much affection while he was alive--or perhaps that was precisely why she was mourning, out of guilt that she had not treated him better. United in mutual guilt and grief that they could share with no one else, they had called a temporary truce and consoled each other. And ironically enough, it had been then, when they weren't even trying, that they had finally conceived a child together.

Laura's birth had seemed like a miracle, a chance to start over again. Their marriage had suffered too much damage to mend completely, but they had done the best they could, treating each other with politeness, if not affection. In time, they had settled into an almost comfortable routine, living separate lives although they still shared the same house; it was certainly no worse than many arranged marriages. But Alden and Rosalind were agreed on at least one thing: they both loved their daughter and were determined to protect her. 

They had made a pact that Laura should never find out about Ethan and how he had died. Completely erasing all traces that a twelve-year-old boy had ever existed would have been impossible in a big city like London, but the little town that they lived in was dependent on Alden's wealth to survive, so everyone had cooperated. And of course Rosalind's family would just as soon forget about the bastard child that had shamed them. As for Alden's family, they had accepted his explanation that any mention of Ethan caused Rosalind unbearable grief.

And then that damned senile old woman had let slip a careless remark about Ethan in front of Laura. Still, everything would have been all right if Ethan had remained dead, but now he had resurfaced, and was threatening to tear apart Alden's family.

Surely it could not be a coincidence that Ethan had "just happened" to run into Laura at Hogwarts, where he was neither a student nor a teacher. Perhaps this was his way of getting revenge upon his mother and stepfather, by turning their daughter against them. But why now, after so many years?

Maybe because Ethan was now in a position of authority at the Ministry of Magic, and thought that he was protected because he was Arthur Weasley's pet werewolf. But Alden was not going to let the werewolf destroy his family...

*** 

When her son had died, Rosalind had wept uncontrollably, and no one--except perhaps Alden--had found it odd for a mother to grieve for her lost child. But she had wept not so much out of grief, but out of guilt that she didn't feel as much grief as she should have. Her son had always been a burden to her, and a reminder of the way that her lover had betrayed her.

It was because of him that she had been disgraced and sent into exile; if she had not been saddled with a bastard child, she might have gone on to make a respectable marriage with someone else, even after her first lover left her. Instead, she'd been forced to marry a Muggle-born--a wealthy Muggle-born, to be sure, but no matter how rich he was, he would never be anything but a Mudblood in the eyes of the pureblood elite that she had so longed to be a part of.

She had resented and even hated her son for most of his life; at best, she had been cheerfully indifferent to him during the first year or two of her marriage, when she had been happy just to have her freedom. She had not protected Ethan when Alden had turned violent and began to beat him, partly because her husband's rages had frightened her, but also because a small, shameful part of her had wanted to see her son punished for the way he had ruined her life.

So when she had heard that Ethan had been killed by the werewolf, she had known that it was her fault as well as Alden's. She had felt nearly sick with guilt, and she had seen in Alden's eyes that he felt the same way--guilty that they were responsible for Ethan's death, and even more guilty for secretly feeling relieved that he was gone.

When Laura had been born, it had seemed like a chance at redemption--a chance to do things right and be a good parent this time around. Alden had cut back his drinking, and although he was a strict father, he was also a loving one, and he had never raised a hand in anger to his daughter. For Rosalind's part, she had stopped quarreling with her husband--they managed to work out a harmonious if rather impersonal truce--and she had showered her daughter with all the love and affection that she had been unable to give to her son.

But now it turned out that Ethan was not dead after all, and Rosalind was terrified that her guilt would be exposed and that Laura would hate her when she learned the truth.

"How can he be alive?" Rosalind shouted hysterically. "The Ministry told us that he was dead! Even the werewolf who attacked him said that he was dead! If he was alive, why didn't he ever come home?"

"Do you really need to ask that?" Alden asked wearily.

"It's because you nearly killed him!" Rosalind shouted accusingly. "He was probably afraid that you'd finish the job if he came back!"

"It's not as if you were a loving mother, either," Alden retorted. "I hurt him, and you failed to protect him; we're both guilty. And yes, he was afraid of me, but he was also probably afraid that we'd have him locked up if we knew that he'd been turned. Would you have wanted a monster living in your house?"

"Well, now that monster is trying to turn our daughter against us!" Rosalind cried. "What are you going to do about it, Alden?!"

"Don't worry," Alden said grimly, with such a cold but intense look of rage in his eyes that Rosalind found herself nervously backing away from him. "I will not let that werewolf poison our daughter's mind. No matter what it takes to stop him."

*** 

The following morning, Laura Madley received a letter from home that read:

Dear Laura,

I am not convinced that this man who claims to be Ethan is really your brother, but I will investigate the matter. In the meantime, you must stay away from him, because he may be dangerous. Obviously, if he is an impostor, he is up to no good--this may be an attempt to blackmail or swindle me, or perhaps he has some other dark purpose that I cannot guess at. But even if he truly is Ethan, it is not safe for you to be near him.

One thing that he said was true: Ethan was my stepson and not my natural child, and I am sorry that I misled you about that. But I saw no reason for your mother to be shamed further by mentioning his illegitimate birth, and I did legally adopt Ethan, so it is not a lie that he was my son. I tried to be a good father to him, but he never really accepted me; I think that he was traumatized by the fact that his birth father had rejected him. When he was younger, he was manageable, but as he grew older, he became more rebellious, and he would run wild in the woods. Many times he would come back with cuts and scrapes, and he would claim that he got them when he fell out of a tree that he was climbing, but I began to suspect that he was deliberately hurting himself, especially when he came back with that horrible cut on his face.

Your mother and I realized then that he was a danger to himself, and we intended to commit him to St. Mungo's for his own good. That was what we quarreled about when he ran away from home, and that is why he was hiding in the woods when the werewolf found him. We kept quiet about it because we saw no reason to give people fodder for gossip after he was dead and beyond help. The townsfolk kept our secret out of sympathy for us, and to protect Ethan's reputation. And also to protect you, so that you would not have to learn such painful things about your brother. But I see now that perhaps it would have been better to entrust you with the truth.

If this man really is Ethan (although I have my doubts), I do not know why he would tell such lies about us. But he has always resented me for taking the place of his real father, so perhaps he wishes to hurt me, and nothing could hurt me worse than to have my own daughter turn against me. Or perhaps being attacked and turned by the werewolf traumatized him so much that he has come to believe that those lies are the truth. He was always a fanciful child, and when he was younger, he used to believe that those fairy tale stories in his books were real. I am afraid that he cast me in the role of the wicked stepfather in his fantasies. And I am afraid that he might take his hatred of me out on you.

So stay away from Ash Randolf, Laura--that's an order. I will speak to the Headmaster and make sure that he does not trouble you at the school again. When I know more, I will let you know, but for now, I want you to stay close to your dorm when you are not in class, and do not wander around the school alone.

With love,  
Father

*** 

Snape sighed a little as he stalked through the Potions classroom, observing his fifth-year Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff class. The Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff classes tended to be a little boring, since the Ravenclaws rarely made mistakes, and the Hufflepuffs, while not quite as clever as the Ravenclaws, tended to be methodical and hardworking, so there was usually little excuse for Snape to take points off them, much to his disappointment. Although sometimes he could make a student nervous enough to make a mistake, which was why he was stalking through the classroom in a menacing manner, pausing every now and then to glare at random students for no particular reason. Snape was bored, and he was still irritated about yesterday's explosion, and taking a few points off some hapless student would make him feel a little better. Unfortunately, it was looking as though he would have to wait for his next Gryffindor class before he'd have an opportunity to do so.

When he paused to glare at Stewart Ackerley, his glare grew less random and more personal. The Ravenclaw boy had been part of the secret society that had played some nasty pranks on the Slytherins last year (one of which had caused serious injury to Theodore), and they had unknowingly helped the Auror Williamson to stir up fear and resentment against the werewolves as well. 

Softhearted Lupin had forgiven the boy because he had been emotionally distraught due to his father being killed during the final battle with the Death Eaters, but Snape was not so forgiving. However, Ackerley had lost all of his former insolence, and remained meek and penitent even in the face of Snape's most biting insults, and he was working on his Strengthening Potion carefully and efficiently, making no mistakes and thus giving Snape no excuse to take points off him.

Snape breathed a small sigh of disappointment, then moved on to look for another potential victim. He frowned as his gaze fell upon Laura Madley, who looked wan and listless. She looked even worse than she had yesterday, and he wondered if she really was ill, after all. Or maybe it was just more teenage foolishness; she had received a letter by owl this morning at breakfast, and had burst into tears and rushed out of the Great Hall after reading it. Maybe she was just carrying on over a breakup with a boyfriend or something equally silly.

Snape's attention was temporarily distracted by Owen Cauldwell, who was whispering something to Kevin Whitby. Snape eagerly pounced on his victims (figuratively speaking), and asked pointedly, "Is there something you would like to share with the class, Mr. Cauldwell, Mr. Whitby?" 

"N-no, sir," Cauldwell stammered, and Whitby vigorously shook his head.

Snape's hearing wasn't as keen as Lupin's, but he thought he had caught a mention of the name "Laura"; maybe Cauldwell was the author of the letter and the cause of Miss Madley's distress. "Then perhaps you could discuss your little romances outside of class, Mr. Cauldwell, fascinating though they might be," Snape said sarcastically, and the boy blushed.

"It's not like that, Professor," Cauldwell protested. "I was just saying that Laura doesn't look so good, and that maybe she should go to the hospital wing."

"Five points from Hufflepuff for talking back to a teacher," Snape said automatically, but he turned back to look at Miss Madley, just in time to see her pour a vial of salamander blood into her cauldron. That was exactly what the students were supposed to be doing at this stage of the potion-brewing process, but the girl was still half-dazed, and some of the blood spilled down the side of the cauldron, dripping into the fire below that was heating it.

Snape immediately forgot about tormenting the Hufflepuff boys and reached for his wand in alarm. Salamander blood was normally safe to handle, but was volatile when it came into direct contact with flames. 

A shower of sparks and glowing red beads of liquid sprayed out from beneath the cauldron, shooting off in all directions as the students squealed and shrieked in surprise and fear. Some of the sparks flew into the open stores cupboard, igniting the more flammable potion ingredients; Snape quickly extinguished the fire, but not before losing a good portion of his dried herbs and roots. 

Meanwhile, Rose Zeller threw herself over Miss Madley, knocking her to the floor, which saved her from being burned by a shower of sparks that would have struck her in the face if she had still been standing. Cauldwell wasn't so lucky; a droplet of heated salamander blood landed on his sleeve, which immediately began to burn.

"I'm on fire!" he shouted in a panicky voice, trying to beat out the smoldering spot on his sleeve with his bare hand, then he yelped in pain and quickly drew his hand back. Whitby was a little more sensible (although to be fair, he wasn't the one on fire), and doused the fire by pouring a beaker of water over it.

Ackerley acted almost immediately and whipped out his wand, shouting, "Congelo!" A blast of icy-cold air shot out from his wand, and the sparks in its path sputtered and fizzled out, while the droplets of blood turned white with frost, hung in the air for a moment, and then fell to the floor with a clatter.

Snape made a mental note to thank Flitwick for teaching his students the Freezing Charm, then quickly dealt with the remaining sparks and blood droplets. It took longer to calm down the students, but when the commotion finally died down, it turned out that no one had been seriously injured. Cauldwell and a couple of other students had suffered mild burns that could be treated with a bit of Burn-Healing Paste. This was due, in part, to Ackerley's quick thinking.

Snape scowled viciously at the boy, then grudgingly said, "Five points to Ravenclaw, Ackerley."

"Thank you, sir," Ackerley said nervously.

"And as for you, Miss Madley," Snape snarled, "thirty points from Hufflepuff for your carelessness! You will also report for detention afterschool, but for the time being, get out of my classroom and don't come back until you're no longer a danger to yourself and your classmates!"

"I'm sorry, Professor," Miss Madley said tearfully, then ran out of the room, sobbing. 

"And where do you think you're going, Miss Zeller?" Snape asked as the other girl started to follow after her friend.

"I just need to make sure Laura's all right," she protested.

"She did not appear to be physically injured," Snape said coldly. "You will remain here and work on your potion until class is dismissed. And since that little fireworks display cost you precious time, you had all better hurry and get back to work, or you won't finish your potions before class is over."

"What about us?" Cauldwell whined. "Shouldn't we go to the hospital wing?"

"Your wounds are hardly fatal, Mr. Cauldwell," Snape said heartlessly, but he waved his wand, and one of his desk drawers popped open and a jar of Burn-Healing Paste floated over and landed on Cauldwell's desk. "Apply some paste to your burns and get back to work, unless you prefer to take a failing grade on your potion."

Cauldwell and the other wounded students obeyed him, grumbling a little under their breaths, and the rest of the lesson passed without incident. Snape sourly thought to himself that he should be careful about what he wished for in the future; he'd wanted an opportunity to deduct points from his students, but he wasn't so pleased about nearly having his classroom set on fire, especially after the incident with the exploding cauldron just the day before.

He wondered if he ought to be concerned about Laura Madley, who had been behaving in a most uncharacteristic manner recently. Then he shrugged it off; she was a Hufflepuff, so she was Sprout's concern, not his. Besides, it was probably nothing. She was at the age when teenage hormones started running rampant, causing teenage emotions and libidos to run wild: an unrequited crush or a simple romance became the stuff of high drama to students her age, as Snape knew from personal experience. He had been about her age when he had fallen in love, and then in hate, with Lupin.

Then his first-year Gryffindor/Slytherin class entered the room, and Snape dismissed Laura Madley from his mind. He smiled gleefully; there were several incompetent and insolent students among the young Gryffindors--although none as incompetent as Longbottom or insolent as Potter--and there should be ample opportunity for him to deduct points and assign detentions.

"I hope you all studied those chapters in your textbook that I told you to read, because we are having a surprise quiz today," Snape announced and his smile grew a little wider as the students groaned in chorus. Yes, things were definitely looking up...

*** 

That same morning, Ash stumbled into the Minister of Magic's office and helped himself to a cup of espresso from the machine he had set up for Arthur. He was pale, and his eyes were bloodshot, and there were dark circles beneath them.

"Good Lord, man!" Arthur exclaimed. "Are you all right? You look like death warmed over!"

"I just have a hangover," Ash muttered, taking a sip of his coffee.

"Ah, to be young again," Arthur chuckled indulgently. "But perhaps you should cut back on the partying, Ash."

Ash sighed and headed to the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office. He couldn't tell Arthur that he hadn't been partying, but had gotten drunk in an unsuccessful attempt to blot out the painful memories of his childhood that his newly-discovered half-sister had stirred up. It was the same reason why he hadn't sought a hangover potion from Takeshi.

Perkins, the department head, was already there, waiting to go over the latest batch of tips and complaints with him.

"A neighbor wrote to complain about Otto Bagman," Perkins said, holding up a letter.

"Otto Bagman," Ash said, trying to recall why that name sounded familiar--a process not aided by the throbbing pain in his head. "Ah, right...there was some trouble in the past with an enchanted lawnmower, right?"

"This time it's a flying vacuum cleaner," Perkins sighed. "Bagman's claiming that it should fall under the 'broom' category because they're both cleaning devices."

"Is there an actual rule against it?" Ash asked. He had a book listing all the rules and regulations regarding Muggle artifacts, but it was a very thick book, and he hadn't had time to memorize them all yet.

"Not exactly," Perkins replied. "It seems to be an oversight or a loophole. But he could still be charged with threatening the safety of the wizarding world for flying it where Muggles might be able to see him. None have yet, but that's more due to good luck than Bagman's discretion."

"The usual procedure would be to confiscate the item and fine him, right?" Ash asked.

"Yes, but that hasn't been much of a deterrent in the past," Perkins said, frowning. "Of course, his brother used to be a prominent Ministry official, so he was used to having Ludo smooth things over for him." He hesitated, then added, "I was hoping that you could, well, have a talk with him..."

Ash grinned in spite of his hangover. "You want me to intimidate him, maybe growl a little and show my fangs?"

"Well, I wouldn't have phrased it exactly like that," Perkins said sheepishly. "But essentially...yes."

"Fine," Ash said, taking a gulp of espresso. At least with his hangover, it wouldn't take much acting for him to growl at Bagman. It would be a relief to be able to vent his bad mood on someone. "So what else is on the agenda?"

"Well--" Perkins started to reply, but before he got a chance to finish, someone burst into the office, slamming the door open so hard that it bounced off the wall. "Excuse me!" Perkins said indignantly. "It's customary--or at least courteous--to knock before entering a room!"

Ash's face turned white and the coffee mug fell from his hand and shattered on the floor; he barely noticed when the hot liquid splashed on his legs. "Father," he whispered.

"Father?!" Perkins exclaimed in surprise.

"Don't call me that, you little bastard," Alden Madley hissed, ignoring Perkins.

"And to what do I owe the honor of your presence after so many years, Stepfather?" Ash snarled, his upper lip curling up in a sneer to expose his sharp teeth.

"You know damn well why I'm here!" Madley retorted. "I want you to stay away from my daughter! How dare you try to poison her with your lies!"

"Lies?!" Ash shouted. "Every word that I told her was the truth and you know it! But if you want to keep your precious daughter away from the big bad werewolf, that's fine with me! I already told her that I want nothing to do with any of you!"

"You sought Laura out," Madley accused. "You're trying to turn her against her own parents in order to get revenge on us!"

"I had no idea that she even existed!" Ash protested. "It was she who sought me out, not the other way around!"

"I don't believe you!"

"I don't care what you believe, dear Father," Ash sneered.

Madley grabbed at Ash's robes, shouting, "You stay away from my daughter or I'll--"

"Or you'll what?" Ash snarled, effortlessly pushing his stepfather away and shoving him up against the wall. Madley stared at him in shock, fear beginning to replace the anger on his face. "That's right, Father," Ash growled, putting a sarcastic emphasis on the word "Father". "I'm no longer the child that you used to torture and bully. I'm a grown man, old enough to defend myself, and thanks to you, I'm also a werewolf. I'm not afraid of you anymore, Father. If anything, you ought to be afraid of me."

"Is everything all right in here?" an anxious voice called out. It was Eric Munch, the Ministry watchwizard. There were also a number of curious Ministry workers crowding around the doorway behind him.

"Mr. Madley and I had a little disagreement, but everything is fine now," Ash said with a smile that bared all his teeth and was more threatening than reassuring. The crowd in the doorway, including Munch, all took a step backwards. "In fact, Mr. Madley was just leaving." 

He released his stepfather, who brushed off his robes and tried to regain his dignity. "This isn't over," Madley hissed softly, then stalked out of the room, brushing past the curious onlookers and ignoring their shouted questions.

"What was all that about?" Munch asked, then took another step backwards when Ash gave him another menacing grin.

"Nothing at all; just a little disagreement about department policy," Ash said sweetly. "Your vigilance is appreciated, Mr. Munch, but as you can see, your presence here is no longer required."

Everyone was obviously curious about the "disagreement," but just as obviously, no one wanted to question an angry werewolf about it. The crowd, including the watchwizard, slowly backed away and Ash closed the door in their faces.

"Let's get back to work, shall we?" Ash said to Perkins.

"Ah...of course," the old wizard said, smiling nervously.

*** 

Rita Skeeter was sitting in Fortescue's with her photographer Bozo, trying to console herself with a hot-fudge sundae. "No wars, no werewolf rampages, no weddings, no scandalous affairs," Rita said mournfully. "Things have been disgustingly quiet and peaceful for the past few months."

"Narcissa Malfoy--I mean, Narcissa Diggory--should be having her half-werewolf baby in a couple of months," Bozo said, slurping down a root-beer float. "That should be good for an article or two."

"I can't wait that long!" Rita snapped, tapping her spoon impatiently against the sundae dish. "The editor's already getting on my case because I haven't come up with a juicy scoop since Narcissa's wedding. I'll be fired if I don't come up with something soon--and that means you'll be out of work, too, Bozo!"

Bozo did not seem particularly concerned about that prospect, but he suggested, "How about an article on Snape's romance with the werewolf?"

"Old news," Rita said dismissively. "If I could get them to give me an interview, that might be worth something, but the last time I tried, Snape threatened to turn me into a toad."

"Well, then you could write an article about him practicing unlawful Dark Magic," Bozo said with a grin.

"That would be fine, except that I might have a difficult time writing as a toad," Rita retorted, glaring at him.

Bozo glanced over at the next table, where a young woman was reading Ariel Zoltaire's latest novel, "By the Light of the Moon," while she ate her ice cream. "How about an interview with that author Zoltaire, then?" he suggested. "I hear that book is the top-selling title at Flourish and Blotts right now."

"That would do as a bit of filler until something else comes along," Rita said morosely. "Except that Zoltaire's true identity is a secret. He or she never makes public appearances or gives interviews." Then her expression brightened. "But maybe I could conduct the interview by owl; that way the author could remain anonymous. That would actually be a pretty good scoop--an exclusive interview with a famous, reclusive author."

Rita was making plans to contact Zoltaire's publisher when a group of clerks from the Ministry walked into the ice cream parlor. "So did you hear?" one of them whispered excitedly as they walked past Rita's table.

"No, what?"

"You didn't hear what happened between Alden Madley and the werewolf? They were shouting so loudly that I thought everyone in the Ministry heard them!"

"Excuse me, Bozo," Rita said in a syrupy-sweet voice as she rose from her seat. "I've got to visit the little girl's room."

The Ministry clerks never noticed when a large black beetle crawled out from under the restroom door and hid itself beneath their table. They finished their gossiping at about the same time that they finished their ice cream, then paid their bill and left. The beetle made its way back to the restroom, and a few moments later, Rita Skeeter emerged.

"Forget about Zoltaire," she told Bozo, her eyes shining with excitement behind her jeweled spectacles. "I have a much more juicy scoop, one that will make front-page headlines! But first, we need to find out everything we can about Alden Madley and Ash Randolf..."

*** 

After school let out for the day, Snape turned Laura Madley over to Filch for detention. He had intended to supervise her detention himself, but changed his mind and decided to go to Diagon Alley to replace the potion ingredients that had been destroyed by the salamander blood mishap. Hermione Granger, Mr. Jigger's new apprentice, cheerfully gathered the ingredients together and asked, "And how are things going at Hogwarts, Professor?"

"Well, on one hand, some silly Hufflepuff girl tried to set my classroom on fire," Snape replied in a dry voice. "But on the other, I was able to take a total of fifty points from Gryffindor today, so I suppose it was not a complete disaster."

Granger just laughed and handed him his purchases, saying, "Give my regards to Professor Lupin and Dylan."

As long as he was in Diagon Alley, Snape decided to visit Flourish and Blotts to see if they had any new Potions books in, and stop by the bakery to pick up some pastries. Along the way, he happened to pass by Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, and was somewhat taken aback when a little girl walked out of the shop with her mother, carrying a little pink ball of fluff that was purring contentedly.

"Thanks and come again!" Fred Weasley called out from the doorway of the shop. Then he spotted Snape and said, "Oh, hello, Professor. I don't suppose I could interest you in a Pygmy Puff?"

"A what?" Snape asked.

Fred smiled proudly. "Our newest product. It's extremely popular; we can't breed them fast enough." He motioned Snape into the shop and showed him a large cage filled with similar fluff balls, in purple as well as pink. "They're actually miniature puffskeins," Fred explained. "They make very good pets; they're affectionate, easy to care for, and will eat almost anything."

Snape regarded both the fluff balls and Fred sourly, and George Weasley added, "Well, I don't suppose that you'd be interested in a pet, Professor Snape, but maybe Professor Lupin might like one?"

"Lupin already has a rat and a dog; he doesn't need another pet," Snape grumbled. "Besides, the dog could eat that thing in one bite." Then he regarded the Pygmy Puffs with more interest and asked, "I don't suppose that they have any use as potion ingredients?"

"None that I know of," Fred replied, looking appalled. "I mean, none at all! Well, Professor, you must be in a hurry to get back to Hogwarts; I apologize for taking up so much of your time. Give my best to Professor Lupin!"

Snape allowed the Weasley twins to usher him out of the shop, and he continued on his way, chuckling to himself wickedly. But he would have to keep Lupin away from the shop for awhile, at least until the Pygmy Puff craze died down; it would be just like the idiot werewolf to want to buy one or more of the little creatures. The dog was bad enough, but Snape was not going to tolerate a pink or purple fluff ball living in his dungeon quarters! It was simply inappropriate for a Slytherin, former Death Eater, and Dark Wizard to have a cute and cuddly pet. A sinister familiar, perhaps--a snake or raven or black cat--but certainly not a pink Pygmy Puff! 

But he had no doubt that those things would be turning up at the school soon--Hogwarts policy permitted students to bring only an owl, rat, cat, or toad familiar, but the little puffballs were small enough to smuggled into the school in a bookbag or even a pocket. Snape sourly thought to himself that if any of the things got loose, he really would dissect them and see if he could find a way to use them in a potion...

He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he wasn't watching where he was going, and nearly bumped into a passing pedestrian. He was about to say, "Excuse me," when he recognized the person--a dark-haired young man who would have been handsome if not for the bitter sneer on his face.

"It's been a long time, Professor Snape," Warren Macnair said.

"Mr. Macnair," Snape said, nodding curtly at his former student. "Do you have business in Diagon Alley?"

"I went to see one of my father's old friends about a job," Warren replied. "Only he has conveniently forgotten all the favors that Father did for him in the past, and says that his business would suffer if he hired the son of a Death Eater." He shrugged. "I knew that it would be a waste of time, but I thought that the Aurors were probably getting bored just sitting outside my house all day, so I thought I should give them a little exercise." He glanced down the street; Snape saw no one there, but he had no doubt that there were a couple of Aurors following Warren at a discreet distance--although not discreet enough, apparently.

"Did you get your Auror friends to set their hounds on me, Professor?" Warren asked with a bitter smile. "Did you ask them to harass my sister at work? Wasn't betraying my father enough for you, or are you determined to ruin his entire family as well?"

"First of all, I do not consider any of the Aurors to be my 'friends,'" Snape replied testily. "And no, I did not tell them to follow you or harass your sister. I had no idea that Imogen was even working at the museum until the Aurors asked me about it. And just for your information, the reason why they're simply following you and haven't thrown you in Azkaban is because I told them that you and Imogen were not Death Eaters and never took the Mark."

"Even if that's true, do you expect me to be grateful to you, Snape?" Warren snarled. "You betrayed your Master and your comrades--"

"I chose the winning side," Snape interrupted coldly; he knew that Warren would never believe the real reasons why he had turned spy for Dumbledore, nor did he care to share anything that personal with him. 

"If your father was wise, he would have done the same. And spare me the speech about betraying my Master; if your father had truly been loyal to the Dark Lord, he would have had you and your sister remain in England and take the Dark Mark instead of sending you into hiding in Europe. In that, at least, he was wise. Otherwise you and Imogen would be in prison right now at best, or if you were less lucky, slain by Aurors or sacrificed and drained dry to feed your precious Master's powers, the way he did to Marta Nott."

The young man seethed and spluttered, but was unable to come up with a retort, probably because he knew that Snape was right. And Snape did feel a small amount of sympathy for Warren and Imogen, who were facing the same kind of prejudice that Theodore and Draco and the other Death Eaters' children had suffered.

"Your father and I chose to fight on opposite sides of the war," Snape told Warren. "But I have nothing against you or your sister. You were a good Potions student, Warren, so if you wish, I will recommend you as an apprentice to one of my colleagues in Europe or America." 

It was not solely out of sympathy that he made that offer. Snape was afraid that if Warren's bitterness and resentment were left to fester, eventually the Aurors' fears would come true and he would try to avenge his father. The Aurors would then have to apprehend him, and it was likely that people would be killed in the process--most likely Warren himself, and he was skilled enough in the Dark Arts that he would probably take an Auror or two with him. Snape had no particular liking for Warren, but he had already seen enough death to last him a lifetime. 

A good many of his former schoolmates, friends and enemies among them, were dead: the Potters, Pettigrew, Regulus Black, Rosier and Wilkes, and Lucius Malfoy, just to name a few. He had no wish to see one of his former students die as well. Snape did not by any means think that Warren would be grateful even if he did accept Snape's offer to find him a job, but it might keep his resentment from turning murderous. A man with nothing to lose was very dangerous, but a man with a job and status in society to protect would behave a little more circumspectly. He might still plot against his enemies, but he would be much more likely to restrain himself to non-lethal political maneuvering instead of murdering people with Forbidden Curses.

"Are you trying to ease your guilty conscience, Snape?" Warren sneered. "I don't need or want your charity!"

"I feel no guilt for what I have done," Snape retorted. "Voldemort was an insane megalomaniac who felt no loyalty towards his Death Eaters; he killed two of the Lestranges, his most loyal followers."

"Then why would you offer to help me?" Warren demanded.

Snape knew Warren would not believe an answer that wasn't self-serving, so he replied, "I was your teacher and Head of House. A certain amount of suspicion would fall on me if you went rogue. The Aurors still do not trust me even though I fought on their side."

"Reviled by both sides, eh, Snape?" Warren laughed.

"I don't lose any sleep over it," Snape said coolly. "I care little for the opinion of my former comrades, and even less for that of the Aurors. Accept my offer or not as you like, Mr. Macnair, but remember this: there are times when you must set aside your pride if you wish to survive." Warren said nothing, but just glared at him silently. Snape shrugged and said, "Well, you know where to find me if you change your mind," and walked away.

*** 

"Can you believe the nerve of that man?" Warren fumed to his sister later that evening over dinner. "He betrays his comrades, then turns around and offers to find me an apprenticeship, like tossing a bone to a stray dog! As if I want his charity!"

"But Professor Snape never seemed like the charitable sort," Imogen said thoughtfully.

"Oh, who knows?" Warren said, throwing his hands up in disgust. "I never thought that he was the sort to fall in love with a werewolf, either! Maybe love has addled his wits."

"It hasn't addled them that much," Imogen pointed out. "He avoided being killed or imprisoned like the other Death Eaters--"

"Because he betrayed them!" Warren interrupted.

"--and retained his position at Hogwarts," Imogen continued calmly. "He'll probably become Deputy Headmaster when Dumbledore finally retires. And he regained his position as Lord of the Snape family. I admit that his affair with the werewolf is inexplicable, but clearly it hasn't affected his Slytherin sense of ambition. He must want something from us--perhaps simply for us to feel beholden to him, in order to collect some favor in the future. It is true that we are disgraced, but we are still one of the old and noble pureblood families, and we will find a way to rise to power again."

"Well, I will never indebt myself to that blood traitor!" Warren shouted, banging his fist on the table.

To his surprise, Imogen said, "Don't dismiss the idea out of hand, my brother. It might not be a bad thing to leave England for a few years. By that time, some of the anti-Death Eater sentiment might have died down, and as an experienced potion-brewer, you may be able to find a position worthy of your skill and rank. And it might help remove some of the stigma of our disgrace to temporarily ally ourselves with the Snape family."

"Ally ourselves with the man who betrayed our father?" Warren asked in horror and disbelief.

"To use him, as he seeks to use us," Imogen corrected him. "Maybe we can even find a way to betray him someday, and pay him back for the way that he betrayed Father."

"Well, I see your point," Warren said reluctantly. "But I don't like the idea of having to even pretend to be grateful to that greasy-haired bastard."

"Let us ask Father's opinion when we go to visit him tomorrow," Imogen said. 

"Very well," Warren agreed. "If Father thinks that I should accept Snape's offer, then I will abide by his wishes, as little as I like the idea."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Madleys learn that their son is still alive; Snape runs into Macnair's son in Diagon Alley; Rita Skeeter exposes Ash's true identity, which causes an uproar at Hogwarts; and the Macnair twins visit their father at Azkaban.

The next morning, the extended Malfoy-Diggory family, including the werewolves who lived at the mansion, were having breakfast when the delivery owl arrived with the Daily Prophet.

"You shouldn't waste your money on that trash," Lukas grumbled good-naturedly. 

"But my dear, where else would we get our news on the wizarding world?" Narcissa protested gently.

"News?" Lukas snorted. "It's full of lies and half-truths."

"Of course," Narcissa agreed serenely. "But I know how to read between the lines."

"Well, would you rather subscribe to The Quibbler, Lukas?" Katherine asked with a smile. "Lance, Lyra, don't play with your food." 

The werewolf twins were drawing mustaches on each other's faces with some egg yolk from their breakfasts, and they protested, "Aw, Mum," as their mother cleaned their faces with a napkin.

"The Quibbler," Draco said, rolling his eyes as he reached for the paper. "At least the writers at the Daily Prophet know that they're lying. Those crazy Lovegoods believe every word that they--Merlin's Beard!" His eyes went wide with shock as he read the headline on the front page.

"What is it, Draco?" Lukas asked.

"I think you'd better take a look at this, Stepfather," Draco replied, handing him the paper. The headline read in bold print: "ASH RANDOLF: THE MINISTRY'S RESIDENT WEREWOLF IS THE ILLEGITIMATE STEPSON OF WEALTHY WIZARD ALDEN MADLEY?!" Printed below the headline were separate pictures of Ash (leaving the Ministry building after work) and Madley (on his farm); neither appeared to be aware that they were being photographed.

The other werewolves jumped up and tried to read the article over Lukas's shoulder. "Who is Alden Madley?" Rachel asked.

"A very wealthy Muggle-born wizard," Narcissa replied. "He owns a vast tract of farmland out in the countryside. But all his wealth can't buy him a place in high society."

"Because of his Muggle blood," Katherine said quietly.

"Well, yes," Narcissa admitted, looking a little shamefaced.

"Lukas, did you know that Ash was the stepson of this Madley person?" Rachel asked in a concerned voice, then hastily stepped back as her pack leader rose to his feet, a look of fierce anger on his face as his fist clenched around the newspaper, crumpling and wrinkling it.

"No, but I have a pretty good idea of who does," Lukas snarled, and marched towards the fireplace.

"Lukas, where are you going?" Narcissa called after him.

"To Hogwarts!"

"But dear, you haven't finished your breakfast yet."

"I need to talk to a certain feathered friend of mine," Lukas said with a grim smile. "And if he doesn't give me the answers I'm looking for, I just might wring his pretty little neck." He flung a handful of Floo Powder into the fireplace and shouted, "Hogwarts School of Magic!"

"Oh dear," Narcissa said anxiously as her husband vanished through the fireplace. "Do you think that he'll be all right?"

"I'm more worried about Tsubasa than Lukas," Katherine said dryly.

"That's what I meant," Narcissa sighed. "I'm worried that Lukas will be arrested if he kills that bird man."

"Well, there's no stopping him when he's in this kind of mood," Rachel said, which did little to reassure Narcissa.

"Don't worry, Mum," Draco said, trying to sound comforting. "Dumbledore won't let him kill Professor Tsubasa. I think."

"Thank you, dear," Narcissa said, a bit sarcastically, but she kissed her son on the cheek anyway.

*** 

The newspaper article was also causing quite a commotion at Hogwarts, particularly at the Hufflepuff table.

"Laura, is that werewolf really your stepbrother?!"

"Not stepbrother--he's her half-brother; the article says that he's Laura's mother's son."

"Well, whatever. Is that why you were asking Celine about Ash Randolf, Laura?"

"Maybe that's why he's been taking lessons from Professor Tsubasa--so that he could meet Laura!"

"Knock it off, all of you!" Rosie finally shouted. "Can't you see that she's upset?"

The Hufflepuffs finally calmed down enough to notice that Laura's face was pale and her hands were shaking. She dropped the newspaper onto the table and cried, "It's all my fault! I've ruined everything!" Then she jumped up and ran from the table, sobbing, and Rosie ran after her.

"Celine?" Tristan asked hesitantly. "Do you know anything about this?"

Celine shook her head, looking very troubled. "Most of the werewolves were cast out by their families, so there's a rule in the pack that you're not supposed to ask anyone about their past. Uncle Ash never talks about his family, and he certainly never said anything about being related to Laura." She added wistfully, "But I like Laura. I'd like it if she joined the pack and became my big sister, but it seems like she's not very happy about the idea."

"I think she's just in shock," Tristan said kindly. "It must be pretty traumatic to suddenly find out that you have a half-brother by reading it in the Daily Prophet."

Zacharias Smith frowned thoughtfully. "I'm not sure that she didn't know about it before today, although I'm sure she didn't expect to read about it in the Prophet. She said, 'It's all my fault, I've ruined everything,' which sounds like she knew about Randolf being her brother. But whatever the case is, we should do our best to support and help her."

The other Hufflepuffs nodded and murmured in agreement. "I guess for now, we should let Rosie calm her down," one of Laura's roommates said. "Once she's calmed down, we can ask what we can do to help."

Meanwhile, the teachers at the head table were also reading the article about Ash. "Well, I guess this might explain Ash's bad mood," Lupin said. "Coming into contact with your estranged family must be pretty upsetting."

"Tell me about it," Snape muttered, recalling how he'd felt when his own estranged family had renewed contact with him via a Howler sent by his mother.

"You knew about this, didn't you, Tsubasa?" Lupin asked. "You knew why Ash was upset, but you couldn't tell me because you wanted to respect his privacy."

"I'd say that the knowledge is quite public now," Snape said dryly.

"Well, I--" Tsubasa started to say, but he never got a chance to finish his sentence, because at that very moment, Lukas strode into the room, grabbed Tsubasa by the front of his kimono, and hauled him up from his seat.

"You and I need to have a little talk," the werewolf leader snarled.

To his credit, Tsubasa didn't flinch. "As you wish, but perhaps we should have this conversation in private?"

Lukas looked around and saw that every eye in the Great Hall was fixed on them. "Oh, very well," he growled, and set Tsubasa down on his feet, but maintained a grip on the shapeshifter's arm and practically dragged him out of the room even though he was putting up no resistance.

"Albus, hadn't you better do something?" McGonagall asked anxiously. 

"Oh, I think that Professor Tsubasa can protect himself," Dumbledore replied calmly, looking unconcerned. "But perhaps Remus and Severus could follow them and make sure that no blood is shed on either side."

Lupin was already rising from his seat and hurrying after the other two teachers, and Snape followed after him, grumbling, "It's bad enough that we have to deal with all the brats. Now we're supposed to baby-sit the teachers, too?"

Snape and Lupin quickly caught up with their colleagues in the antechamber behind the Great Hall, just in time to see Lukas slam Tsubasa against the wall. Tsubasa winced slightly as his body struck the wall, and Lupin winced in sympathy, but the crane man still made no attempt to defend himself.

"You knew, didn't you?" Lukas shouted. "You knew that Ash's family had contacted him, and you didn't tell me!"

"Ash is an adult," Tsubasa said, looking remarkably composed, considering the circumstances. "If he didn't wish to tell you himself, it wasn't my place to--ouch!"

Lukas slammed him against the wall a second time, hard enough for Tsubasa's head to bounce against the wall, and Snape drew his wand and cautiously approached the pair. "That's enough, Diggory," he said. "I understand your frustration, but the Headmaster has ordered that no blood be shed."

"The Headmaster is not part of my pack, but Ash is," Lukas snarled, still glowering at Tsubasa. "And even if Ash is an adult, I've looked after him since he was a cub. And I can't do that if don't know what the hell is going on!"

Lupin walked directly up to the other werewolf, ignoring Snape's look of warning, and placed his hand on Lukas's shoulder. "Please don't be angry with Tsubasa," he said gently. "He was only trying to be a good friend to Ash. And perhaps it's not really Tsubasa that you're angry with, but Ash, for not confiding in you?"

Lukas sighed heavily and released Tsubasa. "I can't believe that he would talk to an outsider about this, but not me," he said, sounding a little hurt. "It's his right not to talk about the past, but if he was meeting his sister, I would have thought that he would tell the pack about it."

"Don't be too hard on him," Tsubasa said, straightening his kimono and rubbing the back of his head as he winced again. "He didn't seek Laura out; she was the one who tracked him down and insisted on meeting him. I think that he didn't mention it to you because he was hoping the whole problem would just go away and then he could forget about it and have his life return to normal. I only knew about it because Laura approached me and asked me to arrange a meeting with Ash."

"I wonder how Rita Skeeter found out about it?" Lupin mused out loud.

Snape had brought a copy of the paper with him, and now that it looked like Tsubasa's life wasn't in imminent danger, he put away his wand and took the time to read the article more thoroughly. 

"Well, it seems that Alden Madley had a very vocal confrontation with Randolf at the Ministry yesterday, telling Randolf to stay away from his daughter. Probably one of the Ministry workers leaked the news to Skeeter. Some of the low-level clerks sell information to supplement their income, and other workers gossip just for the sheer pleasure of it. The news would soon have become public knowledge even if Skeeter hadn't printed this story. It really wasn't very bright of Madley to have had such a public argument, but I've heard that he's short-tempered and very protective of his daughter. He probably wasn't thinking straight at the time, although I'm sure that he regrets it now."

"What do you know about this Madley?" Lukas asked.

Snape shrugged. "He's very wealthy; his farm supplies a large percentage of the produce and magical plants sold in the wizarding world. He's also very status-conscious and resentful of the fact that the pureblood elite snub him because of his Muggle blood. My mother's friends say that he 'acts above his station'. A werewolf stepson would certainly inhibit his attempts to move up the social ladder." 

He continued reading the article. "And an illegitimate werewolf stepson, at that. Randolf--his real name is Ethan Madley--was six years old at the time that Madley formally adopted him and married his mother. The mother, the former Rosalind Parker, dropped out of sight shortly after graduating from Hogwarts, and didn't emerge in society again until she married Madley. Probably her family hid her away to avoid the scandal of a bastard child becoming public knowledge--if Skeeter is telling the truth, that is."

"Her articles have been truthful, even if somewhat sensational, ever since she and Hermione came to some sort of secret agreement," Lupin said. "And Laura's reaction seems to indicate that the gist of the article is accurate."

"Hmm," Snape said thoughtfully. "Madley was one of the parents who protested the hiring of werewolf teachers. I assumed at the time that it was just the usual bigotry, but if he knew that his stepson was a werewolf, that would explain a great deal."

Lupin took the paper from Snape and looked over the article. "This says that Ethan Madley was presumed dead after a werewolf attack. If Mr. Madley truly believed that his stepson had been killed, it would be natural for him to hate and fear werewolves."

"Or he used the werewolf attack as an excuse to fake his stepson's death, much the same way that Diggory's family faked his death," Snape said cynically. "Madley didn't exactly seem overjoyed to find out that his son was alive."

"I think that the Madleys really did believe that Ash was dead," Lukas said, frowning. "Ash told me about the attack, and that he let everyone think that he was dead because he was afraid of being imprisoned or killed if they found out he'd been turned." 

"The Ministry wouldn't have imprisoned or executed a child," Lupin said. "Although he would have had to put his name on the Werewolf Registry."

"Ash didn't know that at the time," Lukas said impatiently. "Besides, his parents would have legally had the right to lock him up in an institution if they wanted." He added bitterly, "I don't know much about Ash's past, but I know that they weren't loving parents."

"His scars," Lupin said, as the realization slowly dawned on him; Snape raised an eyebrow at the plural word "scars," since the scar on Ash's face was the only one that was readily visible. "A werewolf heals wounds without a scar, so he must have received those scars before he was turned, and if he was a child when he was turned, then..."

"One of his parents must have inflicted those scars on him," Snape finished grimly.

"Maybe it was better when I didn't know who his parents were," Lukas growled. "Because then I wouldn't be able to track them down and kill them. Slowly and painfully."

"I know how you feel, but you mustn't do anything reckless," Lupin warned his friend. "Narcissa and the baby need you. And Ash wouldn't want you to go to Azkaban for his sake."

"I'm sorry," Tsubasa said, bowing his head to Lukas. "I did not wish to betray Ash's trust, but I had no idea that things would get so complicated. If I had known that the matter was about to go public, I would have tried harder to persuade Ash to tell you about it himself."

"It's not your fault," Lukas sighed. "Ash can be a stubborn git when he has his mind set on something."

"Look who's talking," Snape muttered under his breath.

"I heard that, Snape," Lukas said, tapping his ear. "Werewolf hearing." He turned back to Tsubasa and said, "I apologize for...uh..."

"Pounding your head against the wall?" Snape helpfully supplied as Lukas glared at him.

"Don't worry about it," Tsubasa said with a smile. "It's nothing compared to my training with the tengu. My instructors used to beat me black and blue in practice when I was a novice student."

"Warriors," Snape said, shaking his head. "They're all masochists."

"I was worried that things weren't going well between you and Ash, but he must really trust you, to tell you things about his past that he hasn't even told us," Lukas told Tsubasa. He grinned and winked. "Should I be expecting you to become an honorary member of the pack soon, the way that your cousin has?"

To everyone's surprise, Tsubasa's expression suddenly turned sad. "I don't know," he said quietly. "I think that Ash has to sort out things with his family before he can think about anything else." He gave them a halfhearted, slightly forced smile. "We should get back to the Great Hall; class will be starting soon."

"Would you take over my first class?" Lukas asked Tsubasa. "I think that I should go talk to Ash."

"Of course," Tsubasa replied. "I have a free period in the morning, so there's no problem."

"Unless...would you like to come with me?" Lukas asked hesitantly.

"No, I think that you should talk to him alone," Tsubasa replied. "But you can tell him that I'll be here if he needs me."

Tsubasa left the room and Lukas sighed, "I guess that I was right to be worried about them."

"I spoke to him last night," Lupin said. "He implied that they were having problems, but that Ash was mostly upset about something else--his family, I assume."

"I'm going to try to catch Ash at home before he leaves for work," Lukas said. "I'll try to be back in time for my next class."

"I'm sure that Albus will understand," Lupin said, and Lukas took the Floo to the werewolves' London townhouse. "I don't understand," Lupin said, shaking his head as he read the article again.

"Which part did your Gryffindor brain fail to comprehend, Lupin?" Snape asked sardonically. "Randolf's illegitimate birth, his probable abuse at the hands of his parents, or the way he faked his death? Which was quite clever for a twelve-year-old, when you think about it. It all seems clear enough to me, even if it does sound a bit melodramatic, like something out of a bad novel. The only part that truly remains a mystery is the identity of his real father."

Lupin smiled only faintly at his lover's sarcasm, too worried and distracted to laugh as he normally would have. "No, I understand all that, Severus. I think it's horrible and despicable for a parent to abuse a child, but I understand that it happens sometimes. What I don't understand is the difference between the way the Madleys treated Ash and Laura. I don't really know them, but I've seen them on Quidditch days, and they seemed like loving parents. Of course, they could be putting up a front in public, but Laura doesn't act like an abused child. She seems very happy and open and trusting--unlike Theo and Serafina, who were always distrustful and wary."

"It's not really all that uncommon for parents to favor one child over another," Snape replied with a shrug. "The Dietrich family doted on their sons Karl and Rafe, but treated their daughter Marta with contempt. And of course there's your friend Black's family, who disowned him in favor of Regulus. And Marta and Sirius were legitimate children; Madley might well have resented having to raise another man's son, and took out his anger on the boy."

"Then why did he marry Ash's mother in the first place?" Lupin asked, still looking upset.

Snape shrugged again. "Maybe he loved her. Or maybe it was some sort of political alliance, although the Parkers don't have a great deal of wealth or influence. My mother might know. But there's not really anything we can do about it, anyway--the damage is already done, and the scandal is out in the open. In time, it will blow over, although Alden Madley's reputation might suffer permanent damage, but he deserves it."

"Laura doesn't, though," Lupin said sadly. "Neither does Ash."

"Life isn't fair, Lupin," Snape said, but he looked solemn despite his flippant words. "Randolf's real family might be scum, but at least he still has his pack."

"There is that," Lupin agreed, although he still looked troubled. "I wonder who his real father is?"

"Most likely someone either very far above or very far below the mother's station," Snape guessed. "In the first case, the father wouldn't want to marry her, and in the second, her family wouldn't want her to marry him."

"If this were one of Prospero's novels, Ash would be the secret son of a prince, and he'd inherit a great fortune at the end of the book," Lupin said with a smile.

"And a princess bride, but I suspect that he'd rather have a groom," Snape said wryly. "I doubt that Randolf is a prince, but if Madley legally adopted him, he has the rights of a legal heir, and he could sue for a portion of the inheritance. The bulk of the estate would probably go to Laura, since she's Madley's biological child, and the court tends to follow the pureblood tradition of blood lineage, but Randolf could receive some compensation, especially if he can prove that his parents mistreated him. In fact, Madley would probably be willing to pay him hush money to prevent the case from going to trial."

"I think that Ash just wants to be left alone," Lupin said.

"Well, if he changes his mind, I can introduce Morrigan De Lacy to him," Snape said with a nasty grin that would have made his students shudder. "That woman could probably convince the Wizengamot to find the Dark Lord innocent. Separating Madley from some of his wealth would be child's play for her."

"It's lucky that Morrigan's on our side," Lupin said, smiling. "I'll tell Lukas to pass your offer on to Ash, but I don't think that he'll take you up on it." Lupin's smile faded and he sighed. "It's too bad that this isn't one of Prospero's novels, after all. I don't think that this story will have a happy ending."

"Probably not," Snape agreed. "Oh, and by the way, Lupin, how do you know that Randolf has 'scars'?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Lupin replied.

"It's obvious that he has one scar on his face," Snape corrected. "If he has any others, they must be someplace hidden beneath his clothes, which then brings us to the question, when and why did you have the opportunity to see Randolf without his clothes on?"

"It's not what you think, Severus," Lupin laughed.

"I certainly hope not," Snape replied, scowling ferociously. "Because then I would have to kill Randolf, and the Headmaster frowns upon his teachers murdering people."

"When I was talking with Lukas in his office the other day, Ash walked in with his shirt open and his chest bare," Lupin explained. "He had a number of small scars on his chest--burn marks, I think, which would support the theory that his parents abused him. I'm not exactly sure why Ash was walking around bare-chested, but he had just come from his lesson with Tsubasa, so we had assumed..." Lupin let his voice trail off suggestively, then frowned. "Although it seems now that he might have been meeting with Laura, so maybe he was trying to show her what her parents did to him as a child."

Snape relaxed and said, "Well, if that's all it was, then I guess I'll let Randolf live. But I don't expect you to make a habit of viewing any men in a state of undress--other than me, of course."

"Of course," Lupin said agreeably, then smiled and kissed Snape on the cheek. "You know, it's kind of sweet that you're jealous, Severus."

"I am not 'sweet'!" Snape protested indignantly.

"Well, lucky for me, I have an acquired taste for sour Slytherins," Lupin teased. "Excuse me, I mean, Slytherin, singular. Just so there's no confusion." He kissed Snape on the mouth, a long and deep kiss that left no doubt about his "taste" for a certain Slytherin.

"We'll be late for class," Snape said breathlessly when they came up for air.

"It's not like anyone's going to give us detention for being late," Lupin said with a mischievous grin.

"Anyone could walk in on us," Snape protested.

"Doesn't that just add to the thrill?" Lupin asked.

"Which one of us is supposed to be the Slytherin?" Snape asked dryly.

"Gryffindors like to break the rules sometimes, too, Sev," Lupin said with a wink. "Come on," he coaxed, giving Snape a come-hither look. "Just a quickie; it'll only take a few minutes."

"I think I need to invent some kind of libido-suppressing potion for you," Snape grumbled, but he pulled Lupin into his arms and kissed him. He idly wondered if werewolf blood could be used in an aphrodisiac, then decided that it would carry too much risk of infection for a normal human, and an aphrodisiac was the last thing that an already hormonal werewolf needed. And soon Lupin's hands and mouth were exploring his body and very insistently demanding his attention, so Snape sighed and surrendered himself to the moment, temporarily setting aside thoughts of potion formulas. Sometimes having a werewolf lover was a little inconvenient, but he supposed that it wouldn't really matter if they were a few minutes late to class...

*** 

"Where's Ash?" Lukas demanded as he stepped into the townhouse.

"It's nice to see you, too, Lukas," Matilda replied with cheerful sarcasm. "Ash locked himself upstairs in his room as soon he saw that." She gestured at a copy of the Daily Prophet lying on the dining table. "Oh, and he drank himself sick two nights in a row. I guess now we know why."

"Is he really Alden Madley's stepson?" Brian asked.

"How would I know?" Lukas snapped. "I found out about it the same way you did, by reading the paper this morning! Apparently the only person that Ash confided in about meeting his sister was his pretty peacock."

"Crane," Kyra corrected, and her pack leader glared at her and then stomped up the staircase.

Matilda sighed. "Have you ever noticed, that for two people who aren't related by blood, Ash and Lukas are a lot alike?"

"You mean stubborn and bad-tempered?" Kyra asked with a grin as she buttered a piece of toast. "Yeah, I've noticed."

"Alden Madley is very wealthy," Brian said, frowning in concern as he stared at the newspaper. "He could make a lot of trouble for Ash--and the rest of us--if he wanted."

"Well, Lukas is a Lord now," Kyra said as she bit into her toast. "And he's got the backing of the Snape family and the Ministry of Magic. I'm not worried about Alden Madley."

"I'm not worried about Alden Madley's money, but I am worried about Ash," Matilda said, gazing anxiously up the staircase. "I've never seen him like this before."

Upstairs, Lukas knocked on the door, and when there was no response, he pounded on it harder.

"Go away," Ash said.

"Goddammit, Ash, open this door or I'll break it down!" Lukas shouted.

After a short silence, Lukas heard the sound of footsteps and then the click of a lock turning. The door opened and Ash stood behind it, looking bleary, red-eyed, and unshaven. Lukas pushed his way into the room and demanded, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"We don't have to talk about the past; that's the law of the pack," Ash said sullenly.

"But this is happening in the present," Lukas argued. In a quieter voice he added, "You could have trusted me, you know."

Sullenness gave way to guilt, and Ash sank down onto the bed, looking weary and defeated. "I'm sorry, Lukas. It's not that I don't trust you. It's just..." He sighed. "I think that as long as I didn't tell anyone about it, I could pretend that it wasn't real."

Lukas sat beside Ash and put an arm around him. "You talked to Tsubasa," he pointed out, but his voice sounded more amused than accusing.

"He already knew about it, sort of," Ash sighed. "That girl gave him a letter for me and told him that I was a long-lost relative who was supposed to be dead, so I kind of had to explain things to him."

"You did more than talk, I hear," Lukas said with a grin.

"Yeah, but I screwed that up," Ash replied gloomily. "I screwed everything up."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Lukas said, smiling. "He seemed very concerned about you."

"Really?" Ash asked, cheering up just a little, and Lukas nodded; he decided not to mention the part about slamming Tsubasa up against the wall. Wolves were protective of their mates, and even if Ash and Tsubasa weren't exactly mates yet, he was pretty sure that they were working up to it.

Then Ash sighed and looked gloomy again. "I said some really mean things to that girl," he admitted guiltily. "Everything I said was true, but...I was kind of harsh on her."

"Laura seems pretty sheltered," Lukas said quietly.

"I know," Ash said, hanging his head and looking shamefaced. "That's what set me off, because..."

"Because her parents took good care of her, but not you?" Lukas asked gently. "I know, Ash. It's not quite the same thing, but it's hard for me to see how Tristan and Gwen can love Amos so much, when I always thought of him as a monster. But he was different with them than he was with me. It's strange, but sometimes people can be good and evil at the same time."

"When I was a child, I would have done anything to make them happy," Ash whispered sadly.

"We're your family now, Ash," Lukas said, hugging him tightly. "We're your brothers and sisters, and we will never betray you."

"I know," Ash sighed, finally relaxing a little, and he rested his head on Lukas's shoulder for a moment. "That's what I told the girl, that my pack was all the family I needed or wanted. But she was so persistent that I finally lost my temper and told her the truth about how and why I got turned. She must have told her father what I said, because he came looking for me at work the next day, and...well, I guess you read what happened in the Daily Prophet. Which reminds me..." He reluctantly pulled away from Lukas. "I should get ready for work."

"Why don't you call in sick today?" Lukas suggested. "I'm sure that Arthur would understand." He smiled. "Besides, I suspect that you really do feel sick; you look like you have one hell of a hangover."

"I do," Ash admitted sheepishly, pointing to an empty Firewhiskey bottle on the nightstand. "And I really don't want to face everyone at work, but I feel kind of cowardly hiding at home."

"Time enough to face the music tomorrow," Lukas said. "Get some rest today; I'll talk to Arthur for you. Do you want me to stay with you? I'm sure that I can get Dumbledore to give me a day off."

"No, it's okay," Ash replied. "I'll probably be sleeping most of the day, and Matilda's here to play nursemaid if I need one."

"Matilda's more likely to tell you to get your lazy arse out of bed than play nursemaid," Lukas said with a grin. "But I'll tell her to go easy on you today." He patted Ash on the shoulder and rose to his feet. "Get some sleep and stay out of the Firewhiskey. And kiss and make up with Tsubasa. He said to tell you that he's there for you if you need him. He really seemed worried about you."

"Yes, Lukas," Ash mumbled, gazing down at the floor and not meeting his eyes.

Lukas frowned, but it wasn't like he could force Ash to get together with the crane. Maybe Tsubasa was right, and he needed to sort out this mess with his family before he could deal with his lovelife.

"All right," Lukas said. "I'm going back to Hogwarts, but I'll come back and check on you when school gets out."

"Thanks, Lukas," Ash mumbled and crawled under the covers.

Lukas left the room and slowly descended the stairs, still frowning. Ash had never been the type to crawl away and hide. Even as a child, he had been brave and defiant. At times, he was hot-tempered and reckless, but never cowardly, and he had never given in to despair, not even when his best friend Jonathan had been murdered by the Death Eaters. Instead, he'd been determined to fight and get revenge. But this time they were facing a totally different kind of enemy, and Lukas wasn't sure how to fight them, or what he should do to help Ash.

*** 

That same day, the Macnairs went to Azkaban to visit their father. A guard was supposed to supervise their visits, but as usual, Warren slipped him a bribe to give them some privacy. The guard was a pureblood who had little love for Mudbloods and half-bloods, and had some sympathy for the Death Eaters' ideals even if he did not agree with all of their methods. And he saw no harm in making a little extra money on the side; visitors were always searched before each visit, and their wands and other magical items confiscated, so there was no possible way for the Macnair twins to break their father out of prison.

"You have one hour," the guard said, holding open the door to Walden's cell. After the twins stepped through, he locked it behind them and left.

"It's good to see you again," Walden said. The Macnair children were well-educated, and unlike most of their peers, spoke several different languages, so during their visits, the family always switched between French, German, and Romanian to confuse anyone who might be listening in on them. They had an arrangement with the guard, of course, but Death Eaters trusted no one and were always prepared for betrayal--especially in light of Snape's defection.

"You look well, Father," Warren said, but it was a polite lie. Walden looked as though he had aged several years since he had been incarcerated, even though he had only been in prison for about one year: his once mostly-black hair was now liberally streaked with gray, and the lines on his face had grown much deeper. Locked around his neck was a silver "Squib Collar"--a device that prevented the wearer from using any magic. Ironically, it had been invented by one of Walden's fellow Death Eaters, Gwydion Donner.

"I look like hell, son, but it's nice of you to say so," Walden said, embracing his children. There was only one chair in the room, which Imogen took, and Warren sat beside his father on the cot that served as his bed. "I'm glad to see you," Walden said, "but perhaps you should cease these visits, at least temporarily. You should be trying to regain public respectability by professing abhorrence for my crimes."

"Never, Father!" Warren said fervently. "We would never betray you!"

"You would not really be betraying me," Walden said impatiently. "You would be deceiving those fools who follow Dumbledore like sheep. You would be building a foundation for our return to power."

"Tell him about Professor Snape's offer," Imogen urged her brother.

After Warren explained, his father nodded thoughtfully. "That might be a solution. If you left England for a few years, then the public's fears will have faded, and they might be more forgiving when you come back. You might even win a little sympathy as a child who has had to live in exile for his father's crimes. But be wary of what Snape might ask in return for this favor; he's a devious bastard."

"I know that we cannot trust him, but we might find a way to betray him before he betrays us," Imogen said.

"That's my girl!" Macnair said approvingly. "Spoken like a true Macnair! But be very, very careful with Snape. He has far more experience at deceit and betrayal than either of you put together. Get more information about this apprenticeship and keep me informed."

"Yes, Father," the twins chorused obediently.

"And here, we brought you the latest copy of the Daily Prophet," Imogen said, handing the paper to her father. Walden took it eagerly; the guards never shared much information with the prisoners, so the twins' visits were his only way of getting news from the outside world.

"You might find the lead story amusing, Father," Warren said with a grin. "It turns out that Alden Madley has a bastard stepson who's a werewolf."

"That Mudblood always likes to act as if he's as good as a pureblood," Imogen laughed maliciously. "That should put him in his place! Dirty blood calls to dirty blood; a Mudblood is no better than a beast, anyway. Why Father, what's wrong?"

Walden's face had turned pale, and his eyes were filled with rage. He pointed at the picture of Ash Randolf and asked in a taut voice, "Does this man look familiar to you at all?"

Imogen and Warren exchanged puzzled looks. "He's Arthur Weasley's pet werewolf, the one who was recently hired to work at the Ministry," Warren replied. "Should he look familiar?"

Walden lowered his voice to a whisper, although it was unlikely that the guard, even if he was listening, would understand the mixture of languages they were speaking. "You do not know him, but this man is your half-brother."

"What?!" Warren and Imogen cried out.

"Shh!" hissed Walden. "Don't attract the guard's attention. This Ash Randolf, or Ethan Madley, is the result of a youthful indiscretion with a woman named Rosalind Parker not long after we both graduated from Hogwarts."

"Father, how could you?" Imogen asked reproachfully.

"This was before I was engaged to your mother, my dear."

"I don't care about that," Imogen said impatiently. "What I meant was, how could you be so careless as to let this woman bear a child who could taint our family honor?"

"I was careless," Walden admitted, grimacing at the memory. "Rosalind was from a middle-class family of questionable bloodline, and of course I never intended for it to be anything more than a brief dalliance, but I underestimated both her ambition and her naivete. She claimed it was an accident, but I'm sure that she got pregnant on purpose; the silly chit actually thought that I would have to marry her, like some idiot honorable Gryffindor. I told her in no uncertain terms that I would never sully my bloodline by marrying her, and I gave her some money to get an abortion. She dropped out of sight after that, and I assumed that her parents were keeping her on a short leash to prevent any other 'accidents'. 

"Several years later, I heard that she married Alden Madley, and that Madley adopted her young son, and I realized that she didn't have the abortion, after all. Still, as long as Madley was willing to claim the child as his, and Rosalind made no demands for me to acknowledge him, I decided to let things be for the moment. By this time, I was already working for my Master, and I had more important things to worry about. I thought that after we won the war and rose to power, then I would eliminate Rosalind and her brat, but then that wretched Potter child vanquished the Dark Lord, and I was hard-pressed just to keep myself out of Azkaban. I couldn't risk being connected to a murder, so I had to let Rosalind and the boy live. And not long after the war ended, the boy was killed in a werewolf attack, so I thought that my problem had taken care of itself. Only it seems that he didn't die, after all."

"Are you sure he's yours?" Warren asked doubtfully, looking more closely at the photograph in the newspaper. "He doesn't look anything like you; maybe your lover played you false, and the father is some other man."

"The shape of his face is a little like Father's," Imogen disagreed. "But his hair and eyes are lighter, so the resemblance is not immediately apparent."

"That is good, because no one has yet guessed that he might be a Macnair," Walden said. "And I would like to keep it that way. And unfortunately, Warren, I do not think that Rosalind played me false, although now I wish she had; I am certain that she had no other lovers while I was seeing her." He crumpled the newspaper in his fist. "Forget about Snape's offer for now; our first priority must be to erase this stain on the family honor. No one must learn that the Macnair line has been tainted by a werewolf."

"Not to mention that he could try to make a claim on the estate, like that werewolf leader did," Warren said, looking alarmed by the thought. "Cyril Diggory stole the Diggory estate right out from under Amos's nose."

"Amos gave him a little help, I think," Imogen said dryly. "If he hadn't joined in on Williamson's plot, the Wizengamot might have favored him over his nephew. But yes, we must find a way to keep the werewolf from taking what is rightfully ours. Since he is a hero of the war, and we are Death Eater sympathizers at best, it is possible that the court might award him control of the entire estate, or at least a significant portion of it. Although..." She frowned thoughtfully. "Since he has made no claim on the estate as yet, perhaps he doesn't know who his father is?"

"It's possible, even likely, that Rosalind never told him," Walden agreed. "She seems to have been very close-mouthed about it; I've never even heard a whisper of a rumor that I might be the boy's father. She could have pressed harder for me to acknowledge her son, and perhaps try to get some kind of financial settlement, but I think that she feared to, because of my involvement with the Death Eaters."

"But if she feels you are no longer a threat..." Imogen said.

"We must eliminate her and the werewolf as soon as possible," Walden said firmly. "And her husband, in case she told him the identity of her son's real father. And anyone else she might have confided in."

"It will be difficult, with the Aurors watching us so closely," Warren said, frowning. "They've been keeping a close eye on us ever since Shacklebolt and Tonks ran into Imogen at the museum." 

"I think they thought that I might be plotting to steal those artifacts they delivered," Imogen said. "There were a number of interesting items, but nothing worth risking a prison sentence for. Ironically enough, there was one artifact, a medallion, that Professor Bletchley thought might be some sort of control device for a werewolf's transformation."

"Werewolves," Walden murmured thoughtfully. "If we could make it seem as if my dear son is a dangerous monster, then we might not have to kill him ourselves; the Ministry would do it for us."

"Normally it would be easy to stir up hostility against a werewolf, but the Ministry will be suspicious of a fake attack occurring so soon after Williamson's fraud," Warren objected.

"Ah, but what if it wasn't a fake?" Walden asked, a smug and spiteful smile slowly spreading across his face. "If a werewolf slaughtered Rosalind and Alden Madley, wouldn't their estranged son be the most obvious suspect?"

"Yes, but where would we find a werewolf assassin?" Imogen asked doubtfully.

"As it happens, I know of one currently incarcerated in a sanatorium in Romania," Walden replied.

"Who is it?" Warren asked curiously. "A former Death Eater? I had thought that the werewolf members were all slain during the first war."

"One remains alive," Walden said. "The most vicious and bloodthirsty of the Death Eater werewolves, the leader of the pack himself: Fenrir Greyback."

"But I thought that the Dark Lord killed him!" Imogen exclaimed.

"For many years, so did I," Walden replied. "But after I completed my mission with the giants and won them over to our side, my Master was well pleased with me, and confided to me that he had only pretended to kill Greyback. He thought that someday he might find a use for him, and so he had Greyback committed to an institution in Romania, a place where wizarding families pay a hefty fee to hide relatives who might prove to be an embarrassment or a disgrace, whether due to insanity or a curse like lycanthropy."

"And this prison has held him for twenty years?" Warren asked incredulously. 

"It is a very secure institution, with a record as good as Azkaban's--before we Death Eaters broke out of it, that is," Walden said. "Greyback is kept heavily sedated and bound with enchanted silver chains. When the Dark Lord last checked, shortly before the second war ended, Greyback was still there. When I did so well with the giants, my Master asked me to liaise with the werewolves as well. 

"However, their leader Lukas Bleddri was proving stubborn, and I suggested to my Lord that we get rid of him and replace him with someone more pliable, the way that we did with the giants. However, there were no likely candidates within Bleddri's pack, and that is when the Dark Lord told me about Greyback. He toyed with the idea of bringing back Greyback to get rid of Bleddri, but then he captured Goewin Donner and heard her prophecy, and he abandoned that plan in favor of the attack on Hogwarts. As far as I know, Greyback is still rotting away in the sanatorium."

"You want to use Greyback to kill the Madleys and lay the blame on Randolf!" Imogen exclaimed. 

Walden nodded, but Warren protested, "But how will we control him? You said that the Dark Lord himself killed Greyback--or at least locked him up--because he couldn't follow orders."

"We could use an Imperius Curse," Imogen said hesitantly.

Walden shook his head. "No, Greyback is very strong-willed, and the curse won't hold for long on him. Of course, it's possible that his incarceration broke his spirit, but I wouldn't count on it. There is a certain amount of risk involved, but there is a way: the Unbreakable Vow."

"We'll grant him his freedom in exchange for his service, but he'll have to swear by the Vow not to betray us," Imogen said excitedly.

"Imogen, you will cast the spell, and Warren will make the Vow with Greyback," Walden instructed. "You must word the Vow very carefully to ensure that there are no loopholes he can use to betray you. Make him pledge loyalty to the Macnair family, and swear to obey all of your and Imogen's orders, and to do no harm, directly or indirectly to yourself, your sister, and me. In return, you will promise to free him from the sanatorium and provide him prey to hunt. He will probably demand that you pledge to do him no harm as well, but make your Vow as vague as possible. You will have the upper hand over him, since he has little choice but to accept or spend the rest of his life locked in a cell. And his thinking will be dulled by the drugs he is being fed."

"And Father and I will not be bound by the Vow," Imogen said with a sly smile.

"It still seems like a great deal of trouble to go through just to get rid of Randolf and the Madleys," Warren said dubiously. "Surely there must be a less complicated and less dangerous way to eliminate them?"

"You must look at the bigger picture, my son," Walden said with a smile. "Greyback is a bloodthirsty bastard, and he won't be satisfied with killing just two or three people. He'll want more prey, and we can use that to our advantage. Let him continue to kill, and let chaos and fear reign in the wizarding world. The public will believe that Arthur Weasley put them in danger with his equal rights bill that let werewolves run loose on the streets, and they'll soon be calling for his removal."

"Particularly if prominent purebloods become victims of this werewolf rampage," Imogen said gleefully. "People will say that the Death Eaters might have been right about some things, after all. And if Weasley was wrong about the werewolves, maybe they'll believe that he was wrong to befriend Muggles and Mudbloods, too."

"And if Weasley and his friends fall from grace, then a power vacuum will open up," Warren said with a grin. "One that could be filled by us, or at least someone more friendly to our cause. And if that happens, then perhaps we will be able to free you, Father. Forgive me for not recognizing the wisdom of your plan sooner."

"Lukas Bleddri, or Cyril Diggory, as he is calling himself now, won't be able to tolerate a rogue werewolf killing people in his territory for long," Imogen said thoughtfully. "He and Greyback will eventually have to fight, and if Diggory kills Greyback, then we lose our servant. But if Greyback kills Diggory, then he would be able to take control of Diggory's pack, and we would have not just one, but an army of werewolves under our control. Is Greyback strong enough to take Diggory?"

"At full strength, yes, I believe so," Walden replied. "Although it may take him some time to recover from two decades' worth of imprisonment. But werewolves have strong constitutions, so I believe that he will regain his strength quickly."

"Will Diggory's pack really follow Greyback if he kills their leader?" Warren asked. "They won't rebel against him?"

Walden thought it over, then replied, "A few of them might rebel, but I believe that most of them will follow him. They live by their wolf instincts, and wolves instinctively follow the strongest wolf in the pack, whether they like him or not. And with their beloved leader dead, they'll be in a state of confusion and fear. They'll be so cowed that it shouldn't take much effort for Greyback to beat them into submission--literally, if necessary."

"The Dark Lord had trouble controlling his werewolves during the first war," Warren said, thinking out loud. "But Greyback will be bound to us by the Vow, and the Wolfsbane Potion will keep the werewolves sane during the full moon."

"We'll need to brew the potion for Greyback ourselves," Imogen said. "Unwanted questions would arise if we were seen purchasing it at St. Mungo's or a potion shop." She smiled. "Fortunately, Warren and I were excellent Potions students, so I suppose we must be grateful to Snape for that, if nothing else."

"As I said, there is some risk in this plan," Walden warned his children. "Even leashed by the Vow, Greyback is still a very dangerous man. And there is the possibility that Diggory will somehow be able to defeat Greyback. I'll be here in Azkaban, so the two of you are the ones who will be bearing the burden of that risk."

The twins exchanged a look, then nodded. "I believe that the rewards are worth the risk, Father," Warren said firmly.

"And even if Diggory does kill Greyback, as long as he manages to kill the Madleys first, we'll still have gotten our money's worth out of him," Imogen said practically.

"Very well, then," Walden said approvingly. "I shall tell you how to find Greyback..."

*** 

Professor Sprout was very upset by the article in the Daily Prophet--not so much by the article itself, but by the effect that it had on her student. She went to check on Laura after breakfast, and found that the girl was so hysterical that Madam Pomfrey had to give her a potion with a strong sedative to calm her down.

"Her father is likely to be a problem, too," a worried Sprout told Dumbledore. "Alden Madley is the type who likes to throw his weight around, and I'm sure that he'll show up here eventually, blaming us for the problem and demanding that we fix it."

"Well then, we must be prepared for Mr. Madley's visit," Dumbledore said calmly. "And since this involves werewolves, perhaps we should consult with Remus and Severus, and also Tsubasa, since Mr. Randolf was his guest at the school."

"What about Lukas?" Sprout asked. "The werewolf in question belongs to his pack, after all."

"Yes, but Lukas has a short temper, and Mr. Madley, as you said, is likely to be very angry," Dumbledore replied. "I think it would be best if the two of them did not cross paths, for both their sakes, don't you, Pomona?"

Sprout recalled the way that Lukas had yanked Tsubasa out of his seat earlier at breakfast, and the new Professor hadn't even done anything to provoke him. She could only imagine what would happen if Madley started shouting insults at the werewolf leader.

"Yes, you're right, Albus," Sprout agreed hastily. "I'm sure that would be best for everyone involved."

*** 

As Sprout predicted, Alden Madley showed up at Hogwarts later that day, demanding to speak with the Headmaster. Filch told him to make an appointment, but Madley planted himself in front of the school gates and made it clear--in rather blunt and insulting terms--that he would not leave until he spoke with Dumbledore. Finally, Filch went to report the presence of an uninvited visitor to the Headmaster, but because Madley had annoyed him, he took his time about it, making his way across the grounds and through the castle at a very slow and leisurely pace.

"It's all right, Argus, I was expecting Mr. Madley to show up sooner or later," Dumbledore assured the caretaker cheerfully. "In fact, I was just discussing that possibility with the Professors." He gestured towards Sprout, Tsubasa, Snape, and Lupin. The first three were sitting in chairs arranged around the Headmaster's desk, while Lupin stood next to Fawkes's perch, feeding candies to the phoenix.

"Please show Mr. Madley up to my office right away," Dumbledore instructed, and Filch reluctantly departed and returned with the angry wizard.

Madley glared at Lupin and snapped, "Is this a school or a werewolf sanctuary, Dumbledore?"

Snape scowled at Madley, although Lupin looked unperturbed, and Sprout said, "Please calm down, Mr. Madley. I understand that you're upset, but there is no need to insult Professor Lupin, who is a respected member of the staff--or Professor Dumbledore, for that matter."

"Respected?" Madley asked incredulously, giving Lupin a look of disgust. Snape's scowl grew fiercer and his right hand drifted towards the pocket where he kept his wand, and Lupin casually moved closer to him and discreetly laid a hand on his arm to restrain him. Tsubasa remained silent but watched Madley closely, the expression on his face impassive and unreadable.

"Respected, yes," Dumbledore said, politely but firmly. "By both the students and the other faculty. And by the people whose lives he helped save as a member of the Order of the Phoenix, when he risked his life fighting the Death Eaters."

"Fine!" Madley snapped, his face flushing with both anger and embarrassment at the Headmaster's gentle rebuke. "I hail Professor Lupin as a hero of the war," he said sarcastically, and Lupin automatically tightened his grip on Snape's arm as the Potions Master tried to reach for his wand again. "But I demand that you bar that other werewolf from the school; he isn't even a teacher, so he has no business being here in the first place!"

"You 'demand'?" Filch said angrily. "You have no right to barge in here making demands of the Headmaster!"

"It's all right, Argus," Dumbledore said genially. "I don't mind listening to a parent's concerns. However, Mr. Madley, there is no policy against the teachers inviting friends over when they are off-duty."

"Even if this so-called friend is harassing my daughter?" Madley retorted. "She's been traumatized by the pack of lies that he's been feeding her!"

"As I understand it," Lupin said quietly, "Laura sought out Mr. Randolf, not the other way around."

"That's a lie!" Madley shouted. "He must have come here looking for her!"

"Mr. Randolf came to the school at my invitation," Tsubasa said coolly. 

"For what reason?" Madley demanded.

"Nothing more than a friendly visit," Tsubasa replied, remaining composed in the face of Madley's anger. "Hogwarts is my home; is it really so unusual to invite a friend to one's home for a visit?" Madley fumed and spluttered, and before he had a chance to get out a coherent reply, Tsubasa continued, "He ran into Miss Madley by chance; he didn't even recognize her when he first saw her."

"I don't believe you!" Madley snarled. "What kind of person befriends a werewolf, anyway?"

"The Headmaster, for one," Tsubasa replied. "And the Minister of Magic, for another." His face remained blank, but a hint of contempt entered his voice. "And quite frankly, I don't really care whether you believe me or not."

"Why, you insolent little--"

"Mr. Madley, this is hardly helping matters," Sprout interrupted, although she also gave Tsubasa a brief glare for needling the already irate wizard. "Can't we discuss this like civilized human beings?"

"It's bad enough that my family has been humiliated in the Daily Prophet," Madley complained.

"Well, perhaps next time, you should think twice before having a very public argument at the Ministry of Magic," Snape said sarcastically.

Madley glared at him (as did Sprout), then turned to the Headmaster and continued, "And I absolutely will not have my daughter associating with that werewolf!"

"Well, that is your right as a parent, although I think that would be a mistake," Dumbledore sighed sadly. "You may certainly forbid your daughter from seeing Mr. Randolf if you wish." Madley smiled triumphantly until Dumbledore continued, "However, as I said, it is also Professor Tsubasa's right to invite a guest over, so long as it is after school hours and the guest has committed no crimes. And I do not believe that Mr. Randolf has been charged with any crimes."

"All he did was talk to your daughter, Madley," Snape said with a vindictive smile. "And the last time I checked, talking to someone wasn't against the law."

"If you won't get rid of the werewolf, then I'll pull my daughter out of Hogwarts!" Madley blustered.

"Surely you don't need to go that far, Mr. Madley!" Sprout protested. "Laura would be devastated to leave Hogwarts and all her housemates! Besides, there's no other wizarding school in Britain! Would you really deny her a proper education or send her to a foreign country just to keep her away from her brother?"

"He's not her brother!" Madley snapped.

"Personally, I don't care whether Miss Madley stays at Hogwarts or not," Snape said in a lazy, indifferent voice as both Sprout and Lupin gave him affronted looks. "In fact, I'm leaning towards the latter at present, since she nearly set the Potions classroom on fire yesterday. However, you might want to keep in mind the fact that people will take it as a sign of guilt if you pull your daughter out of Hogwarts. They'll assume that everything Skeeter printed in that article was true."

Madley's face turned red with rage, and he ground his teeth together in frustration, because he obviously knew that Snape was right. "If that werewolf comes near my daughter again, I'll bring the matter before the school governors!" he snapped, then turned on his heel and started to stalk out of the office. But before he could leave, Tsubasa jumped to his feet and glided over to Madley's side so quickly that it almost seemed like he had Apparated. 

"I know what you did to him," Tsubasa whispered, too quietly for anyone but Madley--and Lupin, with his keen werewolf ears--to hear. "I've seen the proof of it on his body. And if you make trouble for Ash...for Ethan...then I'll make sure that everyone else knows it, too." Madley shot him a look filled with both anger and fear, then stormed out of the office, and Filch ran after him, to make sure that he actually left the school. 

"Do you really think he'll go to the school governors?" Sprout asked worriedly.

"He's just bluffing," Snape said scornfully. "Most of the school governors are purebloods, and they won't go up against the Headmaster for the sake of someone they think of as an upstart Mudblood."

"Well, nothing was really resolved, but at least he hasn't pulled Laura out of school," Sprout sighed.

"Thank you for stopping Mr. Madley from taking Laura out of Hogwarts, Severus," Lupin said, smiling affectionately at the Potions Master. "I apologize for thinking that you didn't care what happened to her."

"I don't know what you're talking about, you idiot Gryffindor," Snape said huffily. "All I did was tell Madley the truth; what he chose to do with that information was up to him. And I most certainly don't care what happens to some insipid little Hufflepuff girl. She's only an average Potions student at best."

"Whatever you say, Severus," Lupin said in a placating and slightly patronizing tone of voice, while Dumbledore chuckled softly. Sprout just stared at Snape, her expression hovering between indignation and confusion, unsure whether to be grateful for Snape's help or offended by his insults.

"I'll be leaving, then, if my presence is no longer required," Tsubasa said, his face still expressionless.

Dumbledore nodded, "Yes, thank you, Tsubasa. I apologize for the unpleasantness, but I think it would be best if Mr. Randolf has no further contact with Miss Madley for the time being. Although he is of course still welcome to continue his lessons with you."

"I don't know whether he will continue them or not," Tsubasa said quietly. "I do know that he has no intention of seeing Miss Madley again, so her father's trip here was completely unnecessary, although I doubt that he would have believed me if I had told him that." He bowed politely and said, "Good day, Headmaster, Professors," then left the room.

The others discussed the situation a little longer, but concluded that there was nothing more to be done right now. Sprout said that she would keep a close eye on Laura, and the three Professors left the office.

Snape and Lupin went down to the dungeon, but Snape walked past the corridor that led to their private quarters. "Where are you going, Severus?" Lupin asked.

"To my workroom, to start brewing the Wolfsbane Potion," Snape replied. "The full moon is coming up soon--which you ought to be keeping track of, Lupin. You're the one who's the werewolf, after all."

"Yes, of course, Severus," Lupin chuckled. "But I won't have to start taking the potion for a couple of days yet, so could we delay the potion-brewing for just a little while?"

"What for?" Snape asked suspiciously.

Lupin slipped an arm around Snape's waist and leaned in close, so that his breath tickled Snape's face as he whispered, "I'd like to reward you for helping Laura."

"I told you that I didn't help her," Snape protested.

"Really?" Lupin sighed regretfully. He moved even closer, so that his lips brushed against Snape's ear as he said, "I guess you don't want your reward, then."

"On the other hand," Snape said hastily, "although it wasn't my intention, if my words did aid Miss Madley in some way, then I should be entitled to collect the reward."

"Of course," Lupin agreed in a solemn voice, although there was a glint of amusement in his eyes. "I would never try to withhold that which is rightfully yours, Severus." And he kissed Snape, slowly and tenderly, his tongue probing gently at Snape's mouth, and sliding between Snape's lips as they parted with a muffled sigh.

And then Snape belatedly remembered that they were still in the dungeon corridor, where a student--or a teacher, for that matter--could walk by at any time. He quickly pulled away from Lupin, although the werewolf made a small, wordless noise of protest--almost a whine, which reminded Snape of how much he liked it when Lupin acted wolfish.

"I think it would be best if I collected my reward someplace more private, don't you?" Snape asked in a husky voice.

"I suppose so," Lupin replied with another regretful sigh. "Although there is a bit of an exhibitionist thrill in making out in the halls."

"And not in my workroom, either," Snape said firmly, taking Lupin by the arm and steering him back down the corridor towards their quarters. "Too many breakable objects."

"Mmm," Lupin said appreciatively. "Sounds like you expect your reward to be quite...vigorous."

"Isn't that usually the way it turns out?" Snape asked dryly, and Lupin just laughed.

*** 

A couple of hours later, Snape was in his workroom stirring a bubbling cauldron. "Stupid werewolf threw off my schedule," he grumbled to the empty room, but without any real heat to his voice. In spite of his complaints, he felt pleasantly sated, if a little tired. As the potion came to a boil, he carefully stirred in some moonwort leaves; the various ingredients for the Wolfsbane Potion had to be added at precise intervals, and in addition, the moonwort had to be gathered under the light of the moon, or its magical properties were nullified.

Brewing the potion was a complicated and tedious process, but Snape didn't mind--not just because the potion was for Lupin, but because for most of his life, he had been happiest when working on his potions. He found the work challenging, and he preferred the solitude of the stillroom to the companionship of other people--people who despised and tormented him, like the Marauders, or people who sought to use him, like the Death Eaters.

Snape brushed a limp, damp lock of hair away from his face with his free hand as he continued to stir the potion; the steam rising from the cauldron was making his hair even more lank than usual. That brought back memories of the Marauders taunting him about his greasy hair, while the bitter smell of aconite brought back memories of the experimental potions he had brewed for Voldemort during his days as a Death Eater...

*** 

Cooper collapsed on the ground, groaning and clutching at his stomach as he retched violently. Voldemort hastily stepped back to avoid being splattered with vomit, a look of distaste on his face.

"It seems that the potion is ineffective, Severus," the Dark Lord said.

"Yes, Master," Snape said nervously, bracing himself for a Cruciatus Curse. The potion formula that the Dark Lord had given him was of dubious origin, from a book about Dark Creatures that was based more on rumor and legend than fact. Snape had already warned his Master that the potion was not likely to work, but reminding Voldemort of that was likely to make him more angry, not less. The Dark Lord despised it when his servants tried to make excuses for their failures.

But fortunately for Snape, Voldemort's attention was drawn to Greyback when the werewolf leader snarled and kicked Cooper in disgust when some of the vomit landed on his boots. "You claim that your potions will make us stronger, but it seems more like you're trying to poison my pack," Greyback growled accusingly. He was the only one of the Death Eaters brave enough--and foolish enough--to talk back to the Dark Lord.

"I am trying to find a potion that will give you control over the transformation instead of being a slave to the full moon, Greyback," Voldemort said coldly. "Surely that goal is worth a few minor setbacks. Besides, if Cooper dies..." He gave the prone werewolf a contemptuous look. "...you can always make another werewolf to take his place." Then Voldemort turned his crimson stare on Greyback and said in a voice filled with quiet menace, "But if you are so concerned about your packmates, Greyback, then I can let Severus test his next potion on you."

Greyback must have realized that Voldemort's patience--which was very sparse to begin with--had reached its limit, because he bowed and said, "Forgive me, my Lord. My impatience caused me to speak out of turn. I too am eager to find a way to master the transformation."

Voldemort seemed mollified by his apology, and turned back to Snape. "Do you have any ideas on how to alter the potion to make it more effective, or know of any more promising formulas we could try?"

"In a recent Potions journal, there was an article published by a Japanese Potions Master who claimed to have limited success in using aconite to suppress the effects of the transformation," Snape replied.

"We don't want to suppress the transformation, Severus," Voldemort said impatiently. "We want to control it."

"Yes, my Lord," Snape said hastily. "But perhaps a small amount of aconite could be used to help control rather than suppress the transformation. Of course, I won't know for sure until I run some experiments..."

Cooper groaned, although it was not clear whether he was groaning in pain or at the thought of playing guinea pig for yet another experimental potion.

"Very well, Severus, look into it," Voldemort ordered. "And continue searching for other potion formulas."

"Yes, my Lord."

Greyback scowled at Snape, then grabbed Cooper and hauled him to his feet, and dragged the other werewolf along with him as he departed.

Snape continued his research for Voldemort, and through Dumbledore, he contacted the Japanese Potions Master, Professor Kamiyama, and began collaborating with him on the experimental Wolfsbane Potion--although of course he did not inform the Dark Lord of his side project. This meant that his work on the potion had to be done in secret, during what little spare time he had when he was not working on projects for the Death Eaters. And since the Dark Lord kept him very busy, his "spare time" was mainly the time that he would have spent sleeping. 

Snape was grateful, though, that because so much of his time was taken up with conducting Voldemort's research and brewing various potions for the Death Eaters, he was not often called upon to participate in the murderous raids that most of his comrades carried out. Although he supposed that he was just as guilty as the Lestranges and the other Death Eaters who killed people directly with Forbidden Curses, because the poisons that he brewed were used to murder people, and the Polyjuice Potion that he made for the Death Eaters enabled them to get close enough to their targets to kill them. There was just as much blood staining his hands as any of the others.

One day Snape sighed as he stirred a cauldron of bubbling Wolfsbane Potion; he and Kamiyama were having difficulty determining the proper amount of aconite to use. Too much would kill the werewolf, or at best make him or her sick, and too little rendered the potion useless. The fumes from the potion were giving him a headache, and he was weary from lack of sleep, since he had been up all night brewing a complicated poison on the Dark Lord's orders.

_Why am I doing this?_ Snape asked himself. He wasn't doing it for the Death Eater werewolves, since Voldemort had specifically ordered him not to waste his time on this particular potion. The only other werewolf that he knew was Lupin, and why should he bother wasting his precious time, not to mention risk angering the Dark Lord, just to help an ex-lover who had betrayed him? 

He hadn't spoken to Lupin since they'd graduated from Hogwarts, but he had kept tabs on him and observed him from a distance. Lupin looked as shabby as ever--apparently, he wasn't being paid for his services to the Order, since he wasn't officially an Auror--and he had looked careworn and worried the last time Snape had spied on him. His face had been pale, with dark circles under his eyes, and his already slender body had looked too thin beneath his patched and faded robes. It might be that the cumulative effects of the transformations were taking a heavy toll on his body, or it might simply be fear and stress; nearly everyone in the wizarding world looked pale and worried these days. Snape ought to be gloating, but found that he could not take any pleasure in Lupin's misery.

If Voldemort and Greyback had known that Lupin was a werewolf, they might have tried to recruit him by either bribery or coercion, but so far he had managed to keep his lycanthropy a secret from the public at large, so right now he was regarded by the Death Eaters as merely another member of the Order--an enemy, but a relatively unimportant one, since he had no wealth or political influence. 

Snape could have exposed Lupin's secret, of course, but he continued to keep his silence. He told himself that it was because Lupin was still Dumbledore's pet, and right now Dumbledore was the only thing standing between Snape and a prison cell in Azkaban. That accounted for his silence, but Dumbledore had not forced Snape to work on the Wolfsbane Potion; he hadn't even been aware of Kamiyama's research until Snape had brought it to his attention.

Snape tried to tell himself that he was attempting to prevent other children from being attacked the way that he had been attacked by Lupin in the Shrieking Shack, but he couldn't make himself believe his own words. He had never been the altruistic type, and he had no special love for children and no foolish misconceptions about them being pure and innocent creatures, since he had spent most of his years at Hogwarts being teased and taunted by the other children. In fact, he wouldn't have minded feeding a few of them--namely the Marauders--to a hungry werewolf.

And yet here he was, working on the potion instead of getting some much-needed rest. He ought to forget about it and go to bed, or spend his time on something more productive that would ingratiate himself with the Dark Lord and win himself a place in Voldemort's inner circle, where he could have access to information that the Order sorely needed.

But instead, Snape sighed again and added a handful of aconite leaves to the cauldron.

*** 

Snape smiled as his mind turned back to the present. Of course the potion had always been for Lupin, and he felt no shame in admitting it now. His former Death Eater comrades would have laughed at the idea of Severus Snape being so sentimental, but they were all dead or in Azkaban, so he supposed that he was the one having the last laugh.

His smile faded slightly as he wondered why Fenrir Greyback had been on his mind so much lately, then shrugged it off. It was probably just because of the questions Lupin had been asking for his book, nothing more. His memories of Greyback and the Death Eater werewolves were unpleasant, to be sure, but were hardly the worst that he had from that time.

He completed the potion, left it to simmer, and returned to his quarters, where Lupin was bent over his desk, frowning in concentration as he nibbled on the end of a quill pen. A lock of long, golden-brown hair fell across his face and Lupin impatiently brushed it back, and Snape found himself smiling, because the scene reminded him of their schoolboy days--the brief and happy period when they had become friends while working on Professor Blackmore's Summonings project. Lupin's hair was as long and untidy as it had been back then, and except for the gray strands scattered among the brown, from a distance he might have been mistaken for a student working on a homework assignment.

Lupin was so deep in thought that he didn't notice Snape entering the room, so the Potions Master snuck up behind his lover, taking careful, measured steps so that his feet made no sound on the carpeted floor. Then he reached forward and pulled Lupin's hair back from his face--taking advantage of the opportunity to run his fingers through Lupin's silky hair--and said snarkily, "You ought to tie back your hair when you're working, Lupin, unless you want it to land in the inkpot."

"Oh!" Lupin exclaimed, looking up in surprise. "Hello, Severus. I didn't even hear you come in."

"That's obvious," Snape retorted, but with good-natured humor. "I would expect a werewolf to be more alert. If I had been a Death Eater assassin, you would have been in a great deal of trouble."

Lupin smiled, looking amused. "All the Death Eaters are dead or in prison, so I wasn't aware that I should be expecting an assassin. And as far as I know, I haven't annoyed anyone else enough that they would want to kill me."

"It was just an example, Remus," Snape said, planting a kiss on the side of Lupin's neck, and the werewolf sighed and half-closed his eyes in pleasure. "I'm a former Death Eater and double-agent, so I can't help being a bit paranoid. Oh, and by the way, I find you quite annoying at times, but I would never kill you."

"Oh? And why is that?"

"Because then I would have no one to sleep with," Snape whispered into his lover's ear, and Lupin's face flushed and his eyes turned slightly glassy with arousal.

"Well, we can't have that, now can we?" Lupin murmured. "Although technically, I think you have something other than 'sleep' on your mind. I thought I was the one who was supposed to be insatiable."

"Perhaps you were right about the wolf's ardor being contagious," Snape replied. "And as I have been laboring over your Wolfsbane Potion, I think that I am entitled to a reward."

"Ah, of course," Lupin said with a smile. "A Slytherin never performs a favor without expecting something in return."

"Precisely," Snape purred wickedly.

"And a Gryffindor always pays his debts," Lupin said, rising to his feet and reaching up to unfasten his robes. Then he paused, looking thoughtful for a moment, and said, "You know, this rather sounds like a plot from one of Prospero's novels, where the virginal heroine--or in this case, hero--is indebted to a dashingly handsome but sinister Dark Wizard who wants the heroine--or hero--to surrender up his or her body as payment."

Snape groaned in disgust. "Do you have to spoil the moment like that, Lupin?" he complained. "First of all, I find those romance novels nauseating. And second, I am not 'dashingly handsome,' and third, you are hardly a virgin."

"But we could pretend," Lupin said playfully. "Don't tell me that Slytherins never do a little role-playing in the bedroom."

Snape stared at his lover in surprise, then shook his head. "You are beginning to frighten me, Lupin. Next thing I know, you'll be suggesting that we try a little bondage, too."

"Well, that's not exactly my cup of tea, but if you really wanted to, I'd be willing to give it a try for your sake," Lupin replied.

"Those are hardly the words of an innocent and pure-hearted Gryffindor!" Snape protested, trying to decide whether to laugh or be appalled.

"I've been corrupted by my Slytherin lover," Lupin said with a grin. "And we Gryffindors aren't as innocent as you seem to think. We're always breaking the rules and getting into mischief, remember?"

"Yes, but I hardly think that sneaking out of the castle to visit Hogsmeade is the same as playing sex games with a Slytherin!" Snape retorted.

"Well, I am particularly mischievous," Lupin declared, giving Snape a kiss. "Er...by the way," he added with a nervous smile, "you were kidding about the bondage, right?"

Snape grinned at him evilly and said haughtily, "You are hardly in a position to complain, Lupin. You are utterly at my mercy unless you can find another source of Wolfsbane Potion."

Actually, these days it was relatively easy to obtain, but Lupin played along, dramatically lifting a hand to his forehead as he pretended to swoon. "You cad! You know I have no choice but to let you have your way with me!"

Snape couldn't take it any longer, and he doubled over with laughter. In fact, he laughed so hard that tears began to stream down his face.

"Hey!" Lupin protested indignantly. "You were supposed to sweep me off to the bedroom!"

"I know," Snape gasped. "I'm sorry...but you just looked so silly...ah hahahaha!"

Lupin pretended to pout, and said in a miffed voice, "Well, if you ever manage to stop laughing, I'll be in the bedroom waiting for you to ravish me."

Snape actually had nearly managed to get his laughter under control, but the word "ravish" set him off again. Lupin heaved an exaggerated sigh of long-suffering resignation, and headed to the bedroom. Since it seemed like it would be awhile before his lover was ready to join him, he began reading one of Prospero's books to keep himself entertained.

"Maybe I could try my hand at writing romances after I'm done with the textbook," Lupin mused out loud, then shook his head. "Or maybe not; Severus seems to find my ideas more comical than romantic." But the sound of Snape's laughter from the other room made Lupin smile in spite of himself, because it made him happy to know that laughter and smiles came so easily to the gloomy Potions Master these days. He was glad to hear his lover laughing, even if it was at his expense. 

So Lupin grinned and stretched out on the bed, patiently awaiting the arrival of his mate. And maybe he'd try a little role-playing again in the future, even if Severus thought it was silly. A little laughter was good for a relationship, after all...

*** 

Imogen and Warren Macnair went to Romania on Imogen's day off, so that no one would wonder why she was absent from work. They Apparated out of the house, to avoid being traced through the Floo Network, and then Apparated several more times, traveling across England in a seemingly random manner designed to shake off any Aurors who might be trying to follow them. Apparition magic supposedly wasn't traceable, but Imogen thought that it was best to play it safe and err on the side of caution. Finally, after they were certain that no one had followed them, they traveled to Romania via an illicit Portkey.

They visited Warren's old mentor, the Dark Wizard he had been apprenticed to, just in case someone did find out that they'd gone to Romania. Warren asked his former Master to write him a job reference, an innocent and plausible reason for their journey, and in keeping with the character of a young man desperate to find employment. 

After obtaining the reference, they did a little sightseeing in the local wizarding village, still playing the part of tourists. And after they were sure that no one was paying attention to them, they left and made their way to the sanatorium, following the directions that their father had given them.

They met with the Director of the sanatorium, claiming to be relatives of Greyback who had only recently learned of his existence, and asked to have him released into their custody.

"That is very noble of you, young miss, young sir, but I think you fail to comprehend just how dangerous this man is," the Director said with an air of patronizing concern. "He has tried to attack the workers here several times, and must be kept sedated and chained at all times for the staff's safety."

"We understand," Warren said smoothly. "We may be idealistic, but we are not complete fools. We will have very strong security measures in place to keep our new kinsman from harming himself or anyone else, until he can be educated as to his proper place in our family. We are of course grateful to you for taking such good care of him all these years, so please accept this as a small token of our appreciation."

He placed a small chest filled with gold coins on the Director's desk; the gold was not from their Gringotts vault, because such a substantial withdrawal might have caused someone to take notice, but from a secret stash of wealth hidden by their father. Most of the old pureblood families kept a secret hoard of coins or jewels for use in emergencies, and the Macnairs were no exception. And as a Death Eater who had once been a fugitive from the law, Walden Macnair had known the wisdom of having access to funds untraceable by the Ministry.

The Director carefully examined one of the coins to make sure it was real, then gave the twins an unctuous smile. "How fortunate Mr. Greyback is to have such loving relatives," he practically purred. "If I do release him into your care, may I assume that the...ah...relative who originally placed him in this institution will not object?"

"Alas, that relative has recently passed away," Warren replied. "So you may rest assured that he will raise no objections."

"Well then, I see no reason not to release Mr. Greyback into your care," the Director said. "However, I must insist that he remain in shackles until he leaves the sanatorium--again, for the safety of the staff."

"I understand completely," Warren assured him, and the two men shook hands. Imogen just watched quietly, but a small smile of satisfaction crossed her lips.

The Director gave Warren the incantations that would unlock Greyback's cell door and chains, then had a lackey escort the twins to the werewolf's cell. They could see the werewolf through the iron bars of the cell door, lying on a stone floor padded with only a thin layer of dank, moldy straw. Greyback's tall, rangy frame looked too thin for its size, although he did not look so underfed that he appeared to be suffering from starvation. His long, gray hair and beard were matted, looking as though they hadn't been trimmed or washed since the first fall of the Dark Lord, and he was clad in filthy, tattered rags that were an indeterminate shade of gray thanks to the grime they were covered in--it was impossible to tell what color the cloth had originally been. In fact, it was quite probable that the grime was the only thing still holding the shreds of cloth together.

"It's dangerous for the staff to go near him, even chained and drugged," their escort whined defensively, although Warren and Imogen had offered no criticisms. "He'll try to attack anyone who comes within reach of him unless he's so sedated that he can't move."

"I did not ask for an explanation," Warren said curtly. "You may leave us now."

The lackey gratefully scurried away, not needing to be told twice, and Imogen and Warren patiently waited for Greyback to become aware of their presence. According to the Director, the staff would normally be giving him another dose of tranquilizers about now, so the effects of the drug should be just beginning to wear off. The werewolf stirred and groaned; he seemed to be waking from his stupor, which was perfect for the twins' purpose: they needed him conscious to make the Vow, but they also wanted him groggy enough that he wouldn't be thinking clearly when he made it.

Greyback slowly raised his head and stared at them blearily through bloodshot eyes; the silver chains and manacles that he wore rattled slightly as he moved. "Macnair?" he asked in a slurred voice.

The twins were taken aback for a moment, until they realized that he had mistaken Warren for his father. "Yes, but Warren, not Walden," Warren replied. "His son."

"And his daughter," Imogen added.

Greyback blinked several times in confusion, and a hint of dismay registered in his eyes. "How many years have I been locked up in here?" he asked, his voice sounding hoarse and raspy with disuse.

"Too many," Imogen said smoothly. "But we might be able to remedy that."

Greyback's eyes still looked dazed and unfocused, but he was not so groggy that he was not suspicious of this unexpected offer of help. "You want something from me," he said almost accusingly. "Or the Dark Lord does."

"The Dark Lord is dead," Warren said bluntly. "The Potter child, who is now a young man, slew him more than a year ago."

"You're lying," Greyback said, but his voice sounded uncertain.

"He is dead," Warren repeated. "Why else would we dare defy the Dark Lord and rescue you from the prison he placed you in?"

When Greyback frowned, still looking suspicious, Imogen said, "With the Dark Lord dead, we are the only ones who know you are here. You may choose to leave with us, or you can rot in this cell for the rest of your life. No one else will ever come for you, because everyone in the wizarding world believes that you are dead."

"All right," Greyback growled, looking shaken. "What do you want from me?"

"We want you to kill someone for us," Warren replied. "I will explain the details later, after we are gone from here."

Greyback laughed harshly; it came out sounding more like a bark. "That is easy enough to agree to; it has been far too long since I tasted fresh blood."

"We need more than your word, Greyback," Warren said as Imogen pulled her wand out of her pocket. "Forgive me if I do not trust you, but my father has told me that you have little love for your fellow Death Eaters. If you wish to leave this cell, you must make the Unbreakable Vow with us." Greyback growled in response, a low, rumbling noise of displeasure, and Warren said coolly, "If you don't want to make the Vow, we can always find another assassin, but I doubt that you will be able to find someone who will free you from your cell."

"It will be to your benefit, too," Imogen added placatingly. "You will gain your freedom, and we will provide a plentiful supply of prey for you to hunt. And perhaps the chance to rule over a pack of werewolves far larger than your old band in the Death Eaters. But you must make up your mind quickly; we cannot linger here much longer." 

"Very well," the werewolf growled, giving in with ill grace. He held up his manacled wrists. "But you'll have to rid me of these before I can make the Vow."

There were wide silver cuffs engraved with runes of warding locked around his wrists and ankles, with a short length of silver chain linking each pair of cuffs. There were also longer lengths of chains running from the cuffs to iron rings firmly bolted into the cell wall. Imogen flicked her wand, and the long chains binding Greyback to the wall fell loose, but the shackles remained on his wrists and ankles.

Greyback awkwardly hobbled to the cell door, hampered by the shackles, and perhaps by the drugs that the sanatorium staff used to keep him sedated. "You really don't trust me, do you?" he asked with a mirthless smile.

"You have given me no reason to trust you as of yet," Warren retorted. "Place your right hand through the bars; we need to be holding hands for the spell to work."

"How romantic," Greyback said sarcastically, but he obeyed and stuck his hand through the gap in the bars, and Warren clasped it in his own hand; the werewolf's fingernails were long and yellowish, almost claw-like, compared to Warren's neatly manicured nails. Imogen stepped forward and touched the tip of her wand to their linked hands.

"I, Warren Macnair, pledge to free you from this sanatorium and give you prey to slake your bloodthirst. In return, Fenrir Greyback, do you swear to obey the orders of myself, my sister Imogen, and my father Walden, and swear never to do us harm, by either direct or indirect means?"

"You just said that you wanted me to kill someone," Greyback growled. His eyes were still bleary, but he was alert enough to glare at Warren suspiciously. "You never said anything about becoming a slave to the Macnair family!" His hand tightened around Warren's, his long nails digging into the younger man's skin, hard enough to hurt, but not enough to draw blood.

"You were already a slave from the moment that you let the Dark Lord burn his Mark onto your arm," Imogen said coolly. "We merely offer you a choice of servitude: to remain here in this cell until you die of old age, or to serve our family and gain a measure of freedom. We will reward you for your service, and even offer you a chance to gain power in the wizarding world." Greyback growled again in frustration, but it was clear to everyone present that he had no choice but to agree to the Macnairs' terms.

"Do you swear to abide by the conditions I just stated?" Warren asked sharply. 

"I do," Greyback growled sullenly, "on the condition that you will not order me to do anything suicidal, and that you will swear not to harm me as well." A thin tongue of bright-red flame shot out of Imogen's wand and wrapped itself around Greyback's and Warren's hands.

"I swear not to harm you, nor order you to carry out any suicidal missions," Warren said carefully, and a second tongue of flame emerged from his sister's wand and intertwined with the first.

"Wait!" Greyback cried. "I want your sister to swear not to harm me as well!"

The werewolf thought pretty quickly for someone who was half-starved and half-drugged, Imogen noted with a touch of grudging respect; perhaps his werewolf constitution allowed him to shake off the effects of the drug more quickly than a normal human. However, it was clear that he did not fully understand how the Unbreakable Vow worked, which was not surprising, since he had not been educated at Hogwarts, according to Walden Macnair. Imogen knew that the Vow had no effect on the Bonder, the one who was casting the spell, but Greyback did not, and that could work to their advantage.

"I swear not to harm you, so long as you abide by the terms of the Vow," she said without hesitation, and silently cast a small illusion spell to conjure up the image of a third red tongue of flame to join the first two. Walden had impressed upon his children the importance of being able to cast nonverbal spells, and now she was grateful for his insistence.

Warren looked alarmed, and Greyback smiled, not quite triumphantly, for he was still bound in service to the Macnairs, but with a kind of grim satisfaction. Imogen caught her brother's eye and tried to silently send him the message, "Trust me." Warren nodded slightly; he was smart enough to know that the Vow should not be binding on her, or at least, he trusted her to know what she was doing.

"Fine," Greyback said. "We're all bound together, till death do us part. Now can we get out of here?"

*** 

The twins took Greyback to a remote safe-house in England that their father had prepared while he was still a Death Eater; in fact, the elder Macnair had hidden there for a time after the Death Eaters broke out of Azkaban during the second war. Imogen had made sure that the pantry was well-stocked before they had left for Romania, and she had also laid in a supply of clean clothing. At the moment, Greyback was more interested in the former than the latter.

"Don't you want to take a bath first?" Warren asked, wrinkling his nose in distaste as Greyback tore ravenously into a cold roasted chicken. Not only did the werewolf smell, it made Warren's skin itch just to look at the grayish crust of grime on Greyback's skin.

"Later," Greyback growled, shifting his attention away from the chicken carcass long enough to tear off a chunk of bread from an uncut loaf with his teeth; he gulped down a quarter of the loaf in a single bite. "I haven't had real food since the cursed Dark Lord locked me in that hellhole! All they feed you in there is gruel and soup--slop I wouldn't feed to a pig."

"Very well, then," Imogen said calmly; she was just as disgusted as her brother, but did not allow any outward sign of it to show on her face or in her voice. "We will bring you up to date as you eat."

"So the Dark Lord really is dead?" Greyback asked sometime later, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand; he had finished eating at about the same time that the twins had finished speaking.

"Yes," Imogen replied, and pointed to a stack of old newspapers. "You can confirm it in the Daily Prophet if you like."

Greyback snorted with amusement, "Oh, the Daily Prophet--now that's a reliable source!" Then he added with a sly smile, "And Daddy dearest is in prison; what a shame."

"You will speak of my father with respect, werewolf!" Warren snapped, but his sister motioned for him to calm down.

"It was our father who had us free you from the sanatorium, Greyback," Imogen said quietly. "So really, it is him that you have to thank for your freedom. After two decades of incarceration, it is perfectly natural for you to be suspicious, but there is no reason why we cannot work out a mutually beneficial alliance."

Greyback gave Imogen a wary but thoughtful look, then shrugged. "Well, I have little choice in the matter, it seems, and at least I'm being well-fed." He flashed a wide grin at the twins, exposing his sharp, yellowish teeth, causing Warren to blanch slightly, but Imogen held his gaze coolly without flinching, and the werewolf gave her an approving nod.

"So who do you want killed?" he asked, casually picking at his teeth with a fragment of chicken bone.

Imogen placed a copy of the Daily Prophet on the table in front of him. "First, Rosalind Madley." She pointed to a photograph of her father's former lover. "Then her husband Alden. That will do to start with; we will give you other targets later."

"Hmm," Greyback said, looking over the article curiously. "And just why did you need me specifically to kill these people? You could have hired a cutthroat in Knockturn Alley for a fraction of the bribe you must have paid the sanatorium to release me."

"We want it to be obvious that the killings were done by a werewolf," Imogen replied. "As you can see from the article, the Madleys' estranged son is a werewolf, and we want him to be blamed for their murders."

"And just what has the Madley family done to offend the Macnairs, that you would go to the trouble and expense of obtaining my services?" Greyback asked.

"That's none of your business!" Warren snapped. "All you need to do is carry out your orders!"

"Come now, we are all comrades here," Greyback said. "And by the terms of the Vow, I cannot betray you. What harm is there in telling me the reason why I am to kill these people?" When the twins remained silent, he smiled slyly. "Shall I take a guess? This article says that the estranged son is a bastard, father unknown. If a man from an old pureblood family...say, for example, the Macnairs...happened to sire a bastard child who turned out to be a werewolf, I imagine that he would go to great lengths to cover it up, don't you?"

"Why you--" Warren snarled, clenching his hands into fists, but his sister placed a hand on his arm to restrain him.

"Don't forget that you are under a vow not to harm him," Imogen cautioned. Then she turned to Greyback and smiled calmly. "As you say, we are all comrades, so it does not really matter if you know the truth. Yes, Ethan Madley, alias Ash Randolf, is my father's illegitimate son, and we intend to see that stain on our family honor eliminated. And furthermore, I order you not to share this information with anyone but myself, Warren, and my father."

"Your wish is my command, Miss Macnair," Greyback said, bowing in a mocking parody of chivalry. "But still, you could have found another way to frame your half-brother; there are enough werewolves in England that you didn't need to come to Romania looking for one. You could have cast an Imperius Curse on a random werewolf and ordered him to kill the Madleys."

"Ah, but my father has in mind something far greater and more far-reaching than simply getting rid of the Madley family," Imogen replied.

"I'm listening," Greyback said.

"The killing will not stop with the Madleys," Warren said. "We want to create an atmosphere of panic and terror in the wizarding world. A werewolf killing spree would convince people that Arthur Weasley's liberal policies are a mistake. And perhaps the public would begin to think that not all of the Death Eaters' policies were wrong. They might even want someone with a strong hand to step in and take control of things and bring order back to the wizarding world."

"And perhaps free your father and the other incarcerated Death Eaters from Azkaban?" Greyback asked with a cynical smile. "That's all very well and good, but what's in it for me?"

"Besides freedom from the sanatorium and the opportunity to eat real food instead of pig slop?" Imogen countered. "The new government will need someone to enforce the law and keep order in the wizarding world. You could be the head of a secret police force that would track down and kill traitors. I imagine that quite a few people, including the members of the Order of the Phoenix, will not tamely accept the change in power."

"So I would be in charge of a squad of Hit Wizards?" Greyback asked, his eyes gleaming eagerly.

"Yes, and you wouldn't need to bother with trifling little details such as a trial," Imogen said with a smile. "In fact, you could be in charge of a squad of Hit Werewolves, if you can take Lukas Bleddri/Cyril Diggory's pack from him."

"I've yet to meet a werewolf that could defeat me in combat," Greyback boasted.

"Don't underestimate him," Imogen cautioned. "From what I hear, he's a dangerous man."

"So am I," Greyback said with a feral smile that was almost a grimace.

"First, you take care of the Madleys," Warren said firmly. "Then we can see about making you king of the werewolves."

Greyback growled softly at the other man's sarcasm, but nodded. "So when do I go after them?"

"On the night of the full moon," Imogen replied. "In the meantime, you must take the Wolfsbane Potion once every day up through the full moon." She lit a fire and placed a small cauldron over it, and poured a bottle of cold Wolfsbane Potion into the cauldron.

"Faugh!" Greyback spat, as the bitter fumes began to spread through the room. "Are you sure that's safe? That bastard Snape poisoned one of my pack members with all the Dark Lord's experimental potions!"

"Snape's werewolf lover has taken it every month for the past several years, and he is still in good health," Imogen assured him. "The potion tastes foul, but it will not kill you, and you must take it without fail if you wish to retain your sanity during the full moon. And in order to carry out the terms of the Vow, you must be sane in order to recognize and focus on your targets."

"All right, all right," Greyback grumbled. "I suppose you wouldn't have gone through the trouble of getting me out of the sanatorium just to poison me--at least, not until after I've killed the Madleys."

"We could not have poisoned you in any case, since we are bound by the Vow not to harm you," Imogen reminded him.

"True," Greyback said, relaxing slightly. "All right, I'll take my medicine like a good boy. The potion won't hinder my ability to attack, will it?"

"You will still transform into your wolf form, and your bite will still be deadly and infectious," Imogen replied. "The potion renders a werewolf 'safe' only in the sense that a sane werewolf will not normally bite anyone."

Greyback laughed, in his raspy, barking voice. "There's no such thing as a 'safe' werewolf!"

"That is what we want the wizarding world to think," Imogen said smugly. "Warren and I must go now, but we will return before the moon is full to give you further instructions. For now, lie low, and rest and recover your strength. There should be enough food in the pantry to last until our next visit--even with your very healthy appetite." She glanced at the pile of chicken bones, picked clean of every scrap of meat. 

"I already feel quite fit," Greyback said, stretching his limbs and flexing his arms, obviously savoring his freedom from the manacles and chains, which the twins had removed when they had arrived at the safe house. His wrists looked red and chafed, as if the silver had irritated his skin, or as if he had regularly struggled against his shackles--or perhaps both. "I may not be at full strength yet, but I'm strong enough to kill a couple of mere humans."

"But you must be a wolf when you kill them, so you must wait until the full moon," Imogen said sternly. "And you will need to be at full strength when you challenge Diggory for control of the pack. So rest and wait."

"Won't you stay and pass the time with me, Lady Imogen?" Greyback asked, leering at her playfully.

"You will keep your grubby paws off my sister, werewolf!" Warren shouted, reaching for his wand, but his sister restrained him.

"The Vow, dear brother," Imogen said, a bit impatiently. "And you, Greyback, keep your hormones under control, because the Vow will kill you if you harm me--and just to make it clear, I do consider rape to be a form of harm." She pulled a small pouch of coins out of her pocket and threw it down on the table. "If you must have a woman, you can go to Knockturn Alley and buy the services of one; just make sure to keep a low profile. It would ruin our plans if anyone recognized you. Oh, and I'd suggest that you take a bath first; I doubt that even the most desperate of whores would touch you in the state you're in now."

Greyback stared at her in surprise for a moment, then threw back his head and laughed out loud. "Ah, Lady Imogen, you are not at all what I expected of a pampered pureblood daughter!"

Warren glowered at him fiercely and said, "Keep yourself under control, Greyback--that's an order! After you kill the Madleys, then you can have all the women you want. Perhaps we'll even let you turn a couple of pretty little witches to keep as your concubines--like that woman you had in the Death Eaters, what was her name...?"

"Eliza Marsh," Imogen supplied.

"Oh, her," Greyback said contemptuously. "She was amusing at first, but I quickly grew tired of all her whining and cringing. A cowed, weak woman is of no interest to me beyond a quick tumble." He gave Imogen a look that not so much lustful--or at least, not entirely lustful--as it was admiring. "An alpha male should have a strong, fiery woman to be queen wolf to his king."

Warren scowled, but Imogen just laughed and said lightly, "Why, Greyback, are you calling me a bitch?"

"From a wolf, that's a compliment, my lady," Greyback replied, giving her another mocking bow.

"Then I'll take it in the spirit it's given, but keep your mind on business for now, Greyback--that's an order," Imogen said. "And I also order you not to touch me without my permission."

"As you command, my lady," Greyback said with ironic humor, and bowed once more as the twins Disapparated.

"I'm beginning to regret this bargain already," Warren said when they arrived back at the Macnair mansion.

"Don't let him bait you," his sister scolded. 

"But didn't you see the way he was looking at you?" Warren demanded indignantly.

"Yes, and I do find it offensive," Imogen said coolly. "But it is an indication that he is a mere beast, controlled by his instincts, and that will make it easier for us to manipulate him. He is no real danger to us, so long as we are careful. He cannot so much as touch me without breaking the Vow and killing himself, while I can kill him with impunity at any time." 

"So you aren't really bound by the Vow?" Warren asked hesitantly. "I didn't think that the Bonder could be affected by the spell, but when I saw that flame, I wasn't sure."

"It was only an illusion, of course," Imogen said impatiently. "Greyback had already pledged to obey us, so he would have been bound by the Vow whether I made the promise or not. But I thought that it would be best to pacify him and give him a false sense of security. If and when we need to get rid of him, his guard will be down long enough for me to cast the fatal spell."

"I still don't like the way he looks at you, like a starving dog staring at a juicy bone," Warren said nervously. "Maybe we should kill him as soon as he kills the Madleys."

"No," Imogen said firmly. "We need him if we are to stir up unrest in the wizarding world and free Father. I can handle Greyback."

"Are you sure, Sister? He is bound by the Vow, but as you said, he is a beast ruled by his instincts. What if he loses control and forgets about self-preservation for just a single, fatal moment?"

"I am certain," Imogen said firmly. "I won't underestimate him, and I will be careful when I am around him. If necessary, we'll give him blood and whores to slake both his lusts and take the edge off, enough so that he won't lose control and make a suicidal attack upon either of us. He cannot take me by force, so he will have to court me, in his own crude way, and that will make him more biddable. It's the principle of the carrot and the stick versus the switch, dear brother."

"And what happens when he realizes that he's never going to get the carrot?" Warren asked dryly.

"Oh, I don't think that he really expects to win over a pureblood girl of noble birth, but I'll see to it that he enjoys trying, and that will keep him in a good mood," Imogen said. "He does have a large ego, but he also has a clever mind. You saw how quick he was to attempt to bind both of us with the Vow, despite being drugged."

"He also has a strong lack of self-control, according to Father," Warren said darkly. "I still think this is dangerous, Imogen. Father won't like it."

"That is why we won't tell Father about this particular detail," Imogen said adamantly, not quite glaring at her brother, but locking gazes with him and staring into his eyes intently. "He'll order us to abort the mission, and then we'll lose our best chance of freeing him."

Warren was the first to drop his eyes and look away. "Are you sure you know what you're doing, Imogen?" he sighed.

"I do," she said firmly. 

"Well, you'll do as you please no matter I what say, so I suppose I must give you my blessing," Warren said ruefully. "Just promise me that you'll kill him at once if he shows any signs of losing control."

"I promise, dear brother," Imogen said placatingly.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ash is targeted as a murder suspect; the Macnairs plot against Snape Hogwarts; Lupin is invited to a baby shower.

Imogen and Warren met again with Greyback at the safe house on the day of the full moon. The werewolf gulped down a mug of the Wolfsbane Potion under their watchful eyes, shuddering and grimacing as he swallowed.

"Gah!" he spat, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. His manners had not improved, Warren noticed, but at least he looked a great deal cleaner than he had at their last meeting. He was dressed in clean robes, and--thank Merlin--he had obviously bathed, since he was no longer grimy and smelly. He had also shaved off his whiskers and hacked off most of his hair, a bit unevenly, tying what was left back in a short ponytail. "I wonder if that bastard Snape made it so foul-tasting on purpose," Greyback grumbled, staring suspiciously at the empty mug.

"I don't think so," Imogen replied patiently, offering the werewolf a glass of water to wash the taste out of his mouth. "Snape created it for his lover, after all, not for you. And besides, other potion-brewers have attempted to alter the taste, without success. Any attempt to sweeten the potion with sugar, for example, renders it ineffective and useless."

"Thanks," Greyback growled, a bit grudgingly, accepting the glass from Imogen and gulping it down. "Though I would have preferred ale or Firewhiskey instead of water."

"No alcohol," Imogen said sternly. "I want your mind clear for tonight's mission. You can celebrate with a drink tomorrow after it's done."

"Yes, Milady," Greyback said with false meekness, bowing and flashing an insolent grin at Imogen.

Imogen laughed lightly, and Warren frowned at his sister and the werewolf. Even if Greyback was bound by the Vow, Warren didn't approve of the cavalier way he treated Imogen, and watching his sister flirt with the werewolf made him even more uneasy, no matter that it was only an act to make Greyback easier to control. 

Adding to his unease was the fact that Greyback, cleaned up and dressed in proper clothing, looked almost handsome in a crude, brutish sort of way. Then Warren shook his head in disgust, silently chiding himself for doubting his sister even for a moment. Of course Imogen would never let a beast, someone with impure blood, lay a hand on her even if he was as beautiful as Lucius Malfoy--which Greyback most certainly was not!

Still, that didn't mean that Warren had to like watching Greyback and Imogen banter with each other. "We have a small problem," he said sharply. "Alden Madley will not be at his residence tonight. He was called away on a sudden business trip, and won't return until tomorrow morning."

"Do you want to call off the assassination until next month?" Greyback asked, looking disappointed.

"No," Imogen replied, after thinking it over for a moment. "Go ahead and kill Rosalind Madley; in a way, this might work out even better. Her husband will undoubtedly accuse his stepson of the crime, probably quite publicly, as he did with his last confrontation, and that should make the headlines in the Daily Prophet. We'll let fear and suspicion build up against Ash Randolf, which will only make him look even more guilty when we kill Alden Madley. You won't even have to wait until the next full moon to do it, once we establish that a werewolf killed Rosalind Madley. If you kill Alden Madley with brute physical strength, it will look like Randolf lost control and killed him in a rage."

"But after his wife dies, Alden Madley will naturally become more fearful and cautious of his own safety," Warren pointed out. "Maybe it might be better to wait and kill them both at once."

"A bit of a challenge makes the hunt more fun," Greyback said with a confident grin, his eyes gleaming eagerly. "If he surrounds himself with guards, then I'll kill them, too. If he goes into hiding, then I'll track him down. It will only make the kill even sweeter when I finally do catch up to him."

"What if the Ministry sends Aurors to protect him?" Warren argued.

"I've killed my share of Aurors, pup," Greyback told him condescendingly. "I'm not afraid of the Ministry's guard dogs."

"You talk pretty big for someone who's spent the last twenty years locked up in an asylum!" Warren snapped, flushing with anger.

"It was the Dark Lord himself who put me there, not a mere Auror!" Greyback snarled, baring his teeth. "I'd like to see how well you would have done against the wizard that not even Dumbledore could defeat!"

"Stop it, both of you!" Imogen said crossly. "At this rate, you'll break the Vow and kill yourselves before you ever have a chance to take on the Aurors!" Her brother and the werewolf both subsided, managing to look both sullen and sheepish at the same time. "Now, it's true that Greyback is a formidable opponent who killed several Aurors during the first war," Imogen said, and Greyback smirked. "However," Imogen continued, giving Greyback a pointed look, "Warren has a point. It would be foolish to be overconfident and charge in blindly without assessing the situation first. If I am not mistaken, it was your recklessness that caused you to fall into disfavor with the Dark Lord, Greyback."

"It wasn't my fault," Greyback growled sullenly. "I didn't mean to kill that man, but it was too close to the full moon, and the smell of blood caused me to lose control of myself for a minute..."

"Well, you've been taking the Wolfsbane Potion, so you should be in full control of your faculties this time," Imogen retorted. "Now, getting back to the original point: leaving Madley alive for now is a calculated risk, but I think it's one worth taking. I don't think that the Ministry will immediately take the werewolf threat seriously, because Arthur Weasley won't want to believe that his pet werewolf could be a murderer--and that will work in our favor, too, because the public will be angry at his apparent negligence. It's possible that an Auror or two might be assigned to guard Madley, but you're confident that you could take them on, Greyback? Answer honestly; that's an order."

Greyback growled, but considered her question carefully. "If it's just one or two of them, yes, I think that I can take them by myself," he replied. "I won't charge in blindly; I'll try to take them by surprise and ambush them. If there are more than that, it would be more difficult, although not necessarily impossible. With multiple guards, sometimes it's possible to cause a distraction and lure them away from their posts to investigate, and pick them off one by one. Although, to be honest, the guards have to be a bit stupid for that to work."

Imogen nodded approvingly. "I don't think that the Ministry will waste more than two Aurors on bodyguard duty for a Mudblood. Even if Arthur Weasley is a blood traitor, most of the high-ranking Ministry officials are purebloods who don't care for upstarts like Madley. We'll just have to evaluate the situation and see what happens, but I think that there will eventually be a good opportunity to kill him, even if he does take precautions. He has a business to run, so he can't stay in hiding indefinitely. And if we wait another month to kill the Madleys, that increases the chance that Rosalind might identify the true father of her bastard son."

Warren slowly nodded. "Yes, that's right; we can't count on her keeping her silence for another month. But isn't there also a chance that Alden Madley might expose Father's identity before we can kill him?"

"What's with this 'we' bit?" Greyback muttered sarcastically. "I wasn't aware that you were planning on coming along with me when I kill Madley."

"I can't be one-hundred percent certain, but I don't think that Madley knows about Father," Imogen said, ignoring Greyback, although Warren glared at him. "I think he would have approached us about Randolf by now if he knew, to say something like, 'He's your problem; you deal with him.'"

"Hmm, you may be right," Warren agreed. "And either way, he won't be eager to publicly acknowledge a connection between his family and a known Death Eater."

"So can I kill the Madley woman tonight or not?" Greyback demanded impatiently.

Imogen smiled--a smug, predatory smile that almost made her look a little wolfish herself. "Yes, Greyback, you may hunt tonight."

The werewolf grinned widely, exposing his sharp teeth, and said with satisfaction, "Ah, I can hardly wait for the full moon." His eyes glittered with hunger and anticipation, and Warren shuddered a little at the sight.

"We'll have to do something about Snape," Warren said, hastily turning away from Greyback to address his sister. "Since a werewolf is involved, he's bound to stick his oversized nose where it doesn't belong. You remember how he and his mother backed Lukas Bleddri's lawsuit against Amos Diggory."

"I'd love to teach Snape a lesson for all those experimental potions he used on my pack," Greyback growled.

"Taking Snape on in direct combat is a bad idea," Imogen cautioned. "He's a sly bastard, and extremely well-versed in the Dark Arts; he used to research spells for the Dark Lord, after all. And besides, it's impossible for you to get to him in Hogwarts. But Warren is right, he probably will try to interfere with our plans, so we'll need to find some way to distract him."

"Such as?" Greyback asked.

"I'm not sure," Imogen confessed. "I'll visit Father tomorrow and ask his advice; I was planning on reporting to him about tonight's mission, anyway. He's known Snape for many years, so he'll have a better idea than we would of Snape's weaknesses."

"I'll leave him to you, then, Milady," Greyback said dismissively, his eyes growing far away and dreamy as his thoughts turned towards the full moon. "My first hunt in years," he murmured, more to himself than to the twins, and he grinned again and licked his lips.

Warren shuddered again and wondered uneasily if making a bargain with Greyback had really been such a wise idea, after all.

*** 

Ash was going over the daily reports with Perkins in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office, sipping a cup of cappuccino. He had calmed down since his encounter with his sister and then his stepfather, but he still felt uneasy. Tsubasa had told him that he was still welcome to visit the school as long as he had no contact with Laura, and although he didn't want to see his sister or his parents, Ash couldn't help but feel that there was unfinished business between them, somehow. It felt like a battle that had ended in a draw, with neither side winning.

There was unfinished business between himself and Tsubasa as well. Ash had continued his fencing lessons, but he felt tense and uncomfortable around Tsubasa, and he suspected that Tsubasa felt the same way, although he hid it better than Ash did. It didn't help that the rush of adrenaline and the smell of sweat always aroused the wolf, but he was afraid to surrender to the beast inside him. The thought of being with Tsubasa filled him with equal amounts of desire and terror, for reasons he didn't fully understand.

Ash sighed wearily and took another sip of his coffee; aside from his personal problems, which were distracting enough on their own, he was always tired the morning after the full moon. When he had been a smuggler, sleeping in late hadn't been a problem, but now that he was working at the Ministry, he had to keep normal office hours. Not that he'd get any sympathy from Lukas, who had to get up just as early for his job as a teacher at Hogwarts.

"I should've made the coffee stronger," Ash muttered, just as the office door slammed open and Alden Madley marched into the room.

"Oh, not again!" Perkins groaned. "Really, Mr. Madley, I must demand that you not interfere with our work! If you have a personal grievance with Mr. Randolf, then you should--"

Madley ignored Perkins and headed straight for Ash, grabbing him by the front of his robes and pulling him out of his chair. Too startled to resist, Ash dropped his cup, which spilled cappuccino all over the reports spread across the desk, which caused Perkins to groan again.

"You did this, you bastard!" Madley screamed, shaking Ash violently. "When you couldn't get to Laura, you decided to come after your mother instead!"

"What are you talking about?" Ash protested, but he felt more frightened than angry, because something was not quite right about his stepfather. This wasn't like the time he had come to confront Ash about Laura; then, he had been furious but in control of himself. This time, Madley looked wild-eyed and hysterical, as if he might snap and go insane at any second. His face was contorted not simply with rage, but also with grief...and then Ash noticed that his stepfather's face was streaked with tears, and his robes were stained with smears of blood. 

"Fa...Father?" he stammered, filled with a sudden sense of foreboding.

"DON'T CALL ME FATHER!" Madley screamed, shoving Ash up against the wall and wrapping his hands around Ash's neck. "I'll kill you! I'll kill you for what you did to her, you bastard!"

Ash fought for breath as he struggled with his stepfather. Normally, his lycanthropic strength would have enabled him to easily push away his attacker, but Madley's grief and rage seemed to have temporarily endowed him with superhuman strength, and his fingers were locked around Ash's throat with an iron grip.

In the background, Ash was dimly aware that Perkins was screaming for help, and then suddenly Shacklebolt, Tonks, and Harry were pulling Madley off of him, and Ash found that he could breathe again. He leaned against the wall, clutching at his bruised throat and gasping for breath.

The three Aurors attempted to reason with Madley, urging him to calm down, but when he continued to struggle and shout, a fourth Auror hit him with a stunning spell. "Take him to St. Mungo's and have them sedate him," Dawlish said curtly to a fifth Auror, who nodded and took Madley out of the office, using a levitation spell to transport him.

"Are you all right?" Tonks asked Ash in a concerned voice.

Ash coughed and replied, "I'll live. What happened?" But as soon as the words left his mouth, he realized that he wasn't sure that he really wanted to know the answer to his question.

"I'm very sorry, Ash, but I have some bad news for you," Tonks said gently, confirming his suspicions. "Your mother is dead."

"She was murdered, wasn't she?" Ash asked numbly, thinking of the bloodstains on Madley's robes. "That's why he was here. He thinks that I did it."

"Did you?" Dawlish asked coolly.

"Of course not!" Ash snapped.

"Well, we'll see about that," Dawlish said, gazing at Ash suspiciously. "Come with us."

"Where?" Ash asked, staring back at Dawlish just as suspiciously. "The last time I saw you, I ended up in a cell at Azkaban." 

Dawlish, along with Williamson, had arranged to have him arrested on a trumped-up charge of selling Muggle contraband during the period of hysteria caused by the fake werewolf attacks. Ash had been locked up for less than two days, but the wolf did not like being confined, and his imprisonment, brief as it was, had been fodder for more than a few nightmares. It hadn't helped that Ash was slightly claustrophobic due to his stepfather locking him in a closet or cellar as punishment during his childhood. 

For several days after his incarceration, he had dreamt that he was a wolf, locked in a small, windowless cell, clawing frantically at the stone walls until his talons broke and bled, not knowing if anyone would ever come and let him out. Eventually, he would wake up in a sweat, heart pounding, and it would take him a few moments to realize that he was human, not a wolf, and lying safe in his own bed, not a prison cell. Eventually, the nightmares had faded away, but his animosity for Dawlish had not.

Tonks glared at Dawlish, and Harry looked uncomfortable, while Shacklebolt said placatingly, "Please come with us, Ash, and we'll take you to see your mother."

Ash did not particularly want to view his mother's dead body, but he went along with the Aurors, because despite Shacklebolt's polite wording, he suspected that he wasn't being given a choice in the matter. Dawlish probably wanted to see his reaction; maybe he thought that Ash might break down and confess at the sight of Rosalind's body.

"I've sent a message to Lukas and Remus asking them to meet us here at the Ministry," Tonks said kindly. "I thought that you might like to have the support of your friends at a time like this. And Kingsley, Harry, and I are here for you, too, of course." Dawlish frowned disapprovingly at the purple-haired Auror for claiming friendship with a murder suspect, but Tonks pointedly ignored him.

Ash hadn't realized that there was a morgue in the Ministry building, but apparently there was, on one of the lower levels. The room was brightly lit, cold, and sterile, filled with the incongruent scents of disinfectant and blood. Rosalind's body lay on a stainless steel table; the bright, harsh lights overhead mercilessly exposed all of her wounds in stark detail: there were claw and bite marks all over her body, and her clothing--a dressing gown over a nightgown--clung to her body in tattered shreds where claws and teeth had torn right through the cloth and into the flesh beneath it. Her clothes were so soaked with blood that only a few small patches of green and white indicated that they had not been red to begin with. 

At first, Ash could not be sure that the body on the table was really his mother's, because her hair was dark and matted with blood, and the left side of her face was mutilated beyond recognition with a row of deep talon marks that gouged across her eye and down her cheek, but the right side of her face had been left intact, with one hazel eye frozen open in a look of fear and horror. Below her face, her neck was a bloody ruin; someone--or something--had torn open her throat.

"Oh sweet Merlin," Ash whispered, feeling the sour taste of bile rising in his throat. "I think I'm going to be sick." He had seen dead bodies before, and he had even seen one or two mutilated nearly as bad as this one before in Knockturn Alley, but none of them had been his mother. Even though he hated her, he would never have wished this fate on her. In his mind, he had always pictured Rosalind as young and beautiful, and it seemed obscene for her to be killed in such a manner, with the beauty she had been so proud of now so horribly disfigured.

"Not on the body, please," a woman's voice said, briskly but not unkindly. 

Ash stumbled back away from the table, his legs wobbly with shock, and Shacklebolt caught him by the arm to keep him from falling. A metal basin appeared in front of him just in time as he doubled over and vomited the remains of his breakfast into it. As he straightened up, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief that Tonks proffered, he realized that the woman holding the basin was Erika Dietrich, his packmate Aric's sister. 

She also worked at the Ministry, in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, but Ash had little contact with her, despite their shared connection with Aric. Unlike most of the other Ministry employees, Erika didn't seem to be afraid of him, and didn't sneer at him or look at him with disdain, but neither was she overly friendly. She treated him in a pleasant but distant manner, greeting him cordially when they happened to pass each other in the halls or the cafeteria, but she never stopped to carry on an extended conversation or join him at lunch. 

Ash didn't hold it against her; he knew that she was in a difficult position, having recently joined a department whose former head, Amos Diggory, had been sentenced to prison partly because of her brother's testimony. It would add even more tension to an already awkward situation for her to openly befriend one of the werewolves Amos had been plotting against. But to her credit, she had remained close to her brother after he had been disinherited by their grandfather, while none of the other members of the Dietrich family had even spoken to Aric since the day he had been turned.

Erika calmly set down the basin on another table and tapped it with her wand, saying, "Evanesco," and its contents vanished. Then she turned back to Ash and asked, "Are you all right, Mr. Randolf?" Her voice was grave, but not hostile, and there was a hint of concern in her eyes. Behind her was a big bearded wizard with a much less friendly expression on his face, standing with his arms crossed over his chest as he gazed at Ash suspiciously; Ash recognized him as Bob Porter, the new Department Head who had replaced Amos Diggory.

"Yes," Ash replied in a shaky voice. "It's just that...it was a big shock. I knew that Rosalind...my mother...had been killed, but I didn't know how..." His voice trailed off as he glanced at Rosalind's body again, then shuddered and quickly looked away. At least he knew now why Dawlish seemed to be regarding him as the number-one suspect. "You think that she was killed by a werewolf, don't you? That explains why Control of Magical Creatures is here, along with the Aurors."

"Your powers of observation are incredible, Randolf," Dawlish said sarcastically.

"We think that she was attacked by a werewolf," Erika replied, ignoring Dawlish. "But we can't yet rule out the possibility that she was killed by some other animal--or someone who wanted her death to look like a werewolf attack." Dawlish grunted irritably but said nothing, no doubt recalling how his former partner Williamson had faked werewolf attacks using transfigured dogs. "That's why we're calling in two specialists from St. Mungo's to examine the victims."

"Are you talking about that mediwizard Kimura?" Dawlish asked disgustedly. "Isn't he a bit biased, Dietrich? Not only is he your brother's roommate, he's a personal friend of the suspect--" He pointed to Ash. "--and his parents were sponsors of the Wolfsbane Potion Distribution Program."

"Ash isn't a suspect, Dawlish," Tonks said sternly. "He's merely the son of the victim, unless you can prove otherwise."

"Oh, come on, Tonks!" Dawlish said impatiently. "Don't let personal bias cloud your judgment. If he wasn't your friend, wouldn't you agree that he's the most likely suspect? He's estranged from his family, and recently had a very public argument with his stepfather, the victim's husband."

"Yes, but we shouldn't rush to judgment," Harry said firmly. "Shouldn't we examine all the facts before we decide who's guilty and who's not? I remember what it was like to be falsely accused, when everyone thought that I was the Heir of Slytherin when the Chamber of Secrets opened, or when everyone said I was lying about Voldemort coming back."

"Very good, Harry," Kingsley said approvingly, clapping him on the shoulder as Dawlish scowled at the boy. "I can see that you'll make a fine Auror!"

"Fine, let's see if the boy wonder can solve the case," Dawlish sneered sarcastically.

Bob Porter cleared his throat and said, "Getting back to your original question, Richard, I also was a bit concerned about Kimura's possible bias. However, the other expert is his supervisor, Hippocrates Smethwyck, a very well-respected Healer, and I trust Smethwyck's judgment. And the two of them have more experience treating werewolves and werewolf victims than anyone else in Britain."

"Oh, very well," Dawlish said, not very graciously, just as the mediwizard and Healer walked through the door, dressed in the lime-green robes that were the uniform of the St. Mungo's staff.

"I'm sorry, Ash," Takeshi said softly, while Smethwyck said nothing, but gave Ash a sympathetic nod.

"Just get on with it, will you?" Dawlish growled.

Takeshi and Smethwyck examined the body briefly, then the Healer looked up and said solemnly, "We'll need to do a more thorough examination, but at first glance, the wounds appear to be consistent with a werewolf attack." Dawlish smiled triumphantly. "However, as I said, we need to do a more thorough examination," Smethwyck added, frowning at the Auror, and then glancing at Ash. "Which can be a somewhat disturbing procedure to those without medical training, and that young man looks like he's about to faint."

"I'm all right," Ash protested, standing up a little straighter.

Smethwyck smiled at him sympathetically. "There's no need to be ashamed; it would be disturbing to see a stranger in such a condition, let alone a family member." To the Aurors, he said, "It's distracting to have this many people standing over my shoulder while I'm trying to work, anyway. Miss Dietrich and Mr. Porter can stay to supervise the examination. The rest of you can take your business elsewhere; I'll bring you the results when we're done."

"Come along, Randolf," Dawlish said curtly. "We'll question you while the Healer is doing his work."

"But not without his lawyer present," a female voice said sweetly, and Dawlish scowled as Morrigan De Lacy stepped in front of him, followed by Lukas, Snape, and Lupin. "The Minister of Magic has given us permission to be here and sit in on the questioning, of course. He understands that you need to interview Mr. Randolf, but he hopes that you'll get the matter cleared up and find the culprit quickly."

"We might not have to look too far," Dawlish muttered under his breath, but his expression turned glum at the reminder that Ash was one of the Minister's favorites--his "pet werewolf," as some people liked to call Ash behind his back.

Morrigan smiled at Ash. "The Minister tenders his sympathies to you, and will no doubt express them in person later."

"I'll remember to thank the Minister for his kindness," Ash murmured, somehow remembering to be politic although he kept seeing his mother's bloodied corpse in his mind. 

"Come on, then, you lot," Dawlish growled in a resigned voice, and led them to an interview room--or it might be more accurate to call it an "interrogation room," since it was obviously designed to intimidate suspects. It was a small, dimly lit room bare of any furnishings but a table and chairs. The walls were windowless, and made of bleak gray stone, only adding to the air of claustrophobia; it reminded Ash uncomfortably of the cells at Azkaban.

"Where were you last night?" Dawlish demanded.

"With us," Lukas growled before Ash could answer, glaring at Dawlish menacingly, which probably didn't do anything to allay the Auror's suspicions.

"It's all right, Lukas," Ash said soothingly, trying to calm his pack leader. "I spent last night at the Diggory mansion with the rest of the pack," he told the Auror in a level voice.

"Did you leave the mansion at any time during the evening?" Shacklebolt asked, but much more politely than Dawlish had.

"No," Ash replied. "I went there straight after work and left after breakfast this morning."

"Can anyone vouch for your presence?" Dawlish asked suspiciously.

"I just told you, the entire pack was there," Ash replied irritably.

"Someone human," Dawlish clarified in a snide tone of voice. "A wolf can't testify--"

"I don't see why not," Lupin said mildly. "I mean, obviously they'd have to testify in their human forms, but a werewolf's mind is sane during the transformation if they've taken the Wolfsbane Potion. There's no reason why they couldn't recognize and identify Ash in wolf form."

"--and besides, even if you weren't there, the other werewolves would cover for you," Dawlish finished, glaring at Lupin and earning a glare from Snape in return. "Their testimony can't be trusted."

Lukas growled softly, and Ash had to fight to keep his own temper under control. "Narcissa was there, and Draco, and--"

"Someone human who is not a former Death Eater or a spouse or child of a werewolf," Dawlish interrupted.

Lukas growled, a little more loudly, and Ash said coldly, "No."

"There are numerous witnesses who can attest to Mr. Randolf's whereabouts last night," Morrigan told the Auror, giving him a contemptuous look. "You can't arrest him without any proof just because you don't trust those witnesses."

"Calm down, De Lacy; no one's arresting your client...yet," Dawlish said, pausing ominously between the last two words. "You know, Randolf, aside from losing your breakfast back there, you don't seem too broken up about your mother's death."

"I hated my parents and everyone knows it," Ash retorted. "If I wept and carried on, you'd just be suspicious of me for faking my grief. Am I heartbroken about my mother's death? No, but neither did I kill her. I wouldn't wish that kind of death on anyone." Dawlish gave him a skeptical look, and Ash said in a voice filled with frustration, "I didn't kill her! I have my pack; I don't need my parents, or my half-sister, for that matter! I just wanted them to leave me alone!" 

"But they wouldn't leave you alone, would they?" Dawlish said, jumping on his statement eagerly. "Your half-sister confronted you, stirring up painful memories, and your stepfather harassed you at work. So you decided to get back at them."

"By killing my mother, the one member of my family who hasn't contacted me?!" Ash exclaimed in an exasperated voice.

Dawlish shrugged. "Maybe you decided to kill her because you couldn't get to the others. Even though you have limited access to the school through your friend Professor Tsubasa, it would still be difficult for you to make your way into the Hufflepuff dormitory to attack your sister. And your stepfather wasn't home last night; maybe you didn't know that he'd be away on a business trip. Maybe you went there last night intending to kill him, but found your mother instead. Or maybe she was your target all along; after all, killing her would hurt your sister and your stepfather pretty badly."

"You have a great many 'maybes,' but no solid proof, Mr. Dawlish," Morrigan said coolly. "Unless you can produce some, this interview is at an end."

"It will end when I say it's over!" Dawlish snapped. There was a knock at the door, and Dawlish shouted irritably, "What?!" Then he turned pale and hastily apologized, "Oh, excuse me, Minister," when the door opened and Arthur Weasley walked into the room.

"My deepest condolences, Ash," Arthur said solemnly.

"Thank you, Arthur," Ash replied, taking a small amount of pleasure in watching Dawlish grind his teeth in frustration.

"Are you just about done here?" Arthur asked Dawlish pleasantly.

"For now," Dawlish replied grudgingly. "But don't leave town, Randolf. We may want to question you again later."

"I'll be in my office if you need me," Ash said with feigned indifference as he rose to his feet.

"Nonsense, Ash!" Arthur exclaimed. "Take the day off; Perkins can manage without you for one day. In fact, take all the time off you need." He patted Ash on the shoulder sympathetically. "Your dedication is admirable, but no one expects you to work at a time like this."

"But--" Ash started to protest. He didn't really feel like working, but neither did he just want to sit around and think about his mother's death.

"I'll take him home," Lukas said quickly, draping an arm across Ash's shoulders. "Tell Dumbledore I'm taking the day off, too," he said to Lupin and Snape, who both nodded. "Come on, Ash," Lukas said gently, and Ash was too tired to argue with him, and he let the other werewolf lead him away to take the Floo back home.

*** 

The Aurors brought Arthur up-to-date on the murder, giving him what little information they had so far: Alden Madley had arrived home from a business trip this morning to find his wife slaughtered in an extremely brutal manner. It appeared that Rosalind Madley had been attacked in the middle of the night, judging by the fact that she was wearing a nightgown. They also believed that she had either been awake at the time, or some noise had awakened her before the attack, because she'd had time to throw on a robe over her nightgown, and it appeared that she had attempted to defend herself; her wand had been found lying in the middle of the bedroom floor. There were also signs of a struggle: overturned furniture, broken lamps and vases, and bloody footprints indicating that Rosalind had attempted to flee from her attacker after being wounded. There were also bloody paw prints resembling those of a large dog or wolf.

"With all due respect, Minister, I think you ought to consider the possibility that Randolf might be guilty," Dawlish said. "He certainly has motive."

"Nonsense!" Arthur said dismissively. "Ash may be a little rough around the edges, I'll admit, but he's no killer. We don't even know for sure that Mrs. Madley was killed by a werewolf."

"Actually, I'm afraid that she was," Smethwyck said reluctantly as he and Takeshi entered the interview room, along with Erika and Porter. "The wounds are all consistent with a werewolf attack. The claw marks indicate that the animal that attacked her had sharp talons like those of a werewolf, not the blunt claws of a normal wolf or dog. The size of the wounds are also larger than those left by a normal canine would be, again consistent with a werewolf attack, because werewolves are usually much larger than normal wolves."

"But maybe she could have been attacked by a transfigured animal?" Harry suggested hopefully. "Williamson transfigured those dogs to have sharp claws, when he was staging the fake werewolf attacks."

Dawlish scowled at the reminder of his former partner's treachery, and Smethwyck smiled sadly and shook his head. "I'm afraid not, Mr. Potter," the Healer replied. "The victim had shallow, non-life-threatening wounds on her arms and legs that show signs that they had begun to heal before she died. That means she was infected by a real werewolf; she would have been turned herself if her other wounds had not been so severe. She had many deep bite and claw wounds that would probably have caused her to bleed to death eventually, but the killing blow appears to be a bite to the neck. It...well...to put it bluntly, the werewolf tore her throat out."

"I told you that Randolf killed her!" Dawlish said triumphantly.

"We know that she was killed by a werewolf," Takeshi said sharply. "We don't know which particular werewolf was the murderer."

"Please," Dawlish snorted incredulously, "you're not going to try to tell me that a woman whose estranged son is a werewolf happened to be attacked by a completely different werewolf just by pure coincidence!"

"A few tufts of gray fur were found on the body," Erika interjected, as the two wizards glared at each other hatefully. "Am I correct in understanding that a werewolf's fur is the same color as its hair in human form?" Smethwyck nodded. "Well then," Erika continued, "we can reasonably infer that the person who attacked Mrs. Madley has gray hair."

"Ash's hair is brown," Harry said, but a bit uncertainly. "Mostly."

"Brown streaked with gray!" Dawlish said vehemently. "So it could still be him!"

"I would expect to see a few brown hairs also, in that case, but I cannot rule out the possibility entirely," Smethwyck admitted reluctantly. "On the other hand, the strain of the transformation causes most adult werewolves to go prematurely gray..."

"Like me," Lupin said with a faint smile, although he still looked worried. "Did you want to ask me for an alibi, too, Richard? I was with Severus all night, but I suppose you'd consider him a biased witness since he's my mate."

Snape glared at Dawlish fiercely, practically daring him to accuse Lupin of murder, but the Auror just gave the pair a sour look and said, "Lupin is not a suspect at this time."

"So I don't think that you can identify a suspect solely by the color of his hair...er, I mean, fur," Smethwyck finished. "Over half of the werewolves in Master Diggory's pack have at least some gray in their hair."

"But only one of those werewolves is related to the victim!" Dawlish snapped. "Who else would have a motive to kill Rosalind Madley? She doesn't appear to have any enemies who would want to kill her, other than her son. She's a housewife, and from a family of no particular distinction, with no political power or stature."

"What about her husband?" Harry asked hesitantly. "In mystery novels, they say that the most likely suspect is someone close to the victim, like a family member or a lover. Ash fits that description, but so does Mr. Madley. And his robes were stained with blood."

"Is that how you're learning to be an Auror, Potter?" Dawlish asked scornfully. "From mystery novels?"

Harry flushed, and Kingsley smiled and said, "Well, the theory is a valid one, even if he did get it from a novel, and we do tend to look for suspects among the friends and family of the victim first, unless we have reason to believe otherwise."

"Madley went hysterical and embraced his wife's body when he found her--or at least, that's what he told us," Tonks said thoughtfully. "But I've heard a few rumors that the marriage wasn't a particularly happy one. We know that he was upset about the article in the Daily Prophet; perhaps he blamed the scandal on his wife, for bearing an illegitimate child. We would need to investigate the Madleys' background, to see whether their marriage was troubled enough for Alden Madley to want to kill his wife."

"Alden Madley couldn't have killed her unless he's secretly a werewolf!" Dawlish said impatiently. "The Healer just said that she was killed by a werewolf!"

"But he could have hired a werewolf to kill her," Harry pointed out. "Or put an Imperius Curse on one. He didn't have to do it directly. Or maybe it doesn't have anything to do with either Mr. Madley or Ash, and the attack was just caused by a rogue werewolf?"

"A rather unlikely coincidence, Mr. Potter," Dawlish said dismissively.

"He may have a point, Richard," Arthur objected. "After all, wasn't Ash himself turned by a rogue werewolf in the forest near the Madleys' residence?"

"He was attacked by a single rogue werewolf," Dawlish replied. "I did a little research after that article came out. The werewolf was apprehended and sentenced to Azkaban, and no other werewolf sightings or attacks have been reported in the area since then."

"Is that werewolf still in prison?" Harry asked. "If he escaped or was paroled, he might want revenge on the Madleys for causing him to be arrested."

"Once again, you are jumping to false conclusions, Mr. Potter," Dawlish said disdainfully. "The werewolf died in Azkaban a few years after his arrest and conviction, so he could not possibly have been the culprit in this murder." Harry sighed in disappointment.

"Alden Madley is a wealthy Muggle-born who has ruffled a few pureblood feathers," Tonks said thoughtfully. "Perhaps someone with a grudge or prejudice against him arranged the attack on his wife as revenge. Or maybe the attack was actually meant for him, but the killer didn't know that he'd be out of town, and his wife was killed in his place."

"That's possible," Dawlish conceded grudgingly, "but not very likely. Alden Madley is more disliked than hated by the pureblood community. I don't think that they take him seriously enough to commit murder over him."

"You are all overlooking a very obvious suspect," Snape said in the impatient, condescending tone of voice that he often used on his students, the one that seemed to imply that they were complete dunces.

"Enlighten us, then, Snape," Dawlish said sarcastically.

Snape smirked, but did not immediately answer, choosing to draw out the suspense to annoy Dawlish further. "Come now, use your common sense. Who else besides Randolf would want to see Rosalind Madley dead--and want to see Randolf implicated in her death?"

Takeshi looked startled, then exclaimed, "Why, his father, of course!"

Snape smiled with satisfaction. "Very good, Mr. Kimura; five points to Ravenclaw," he said, a hint of sardonic amusement coloring his deep voice.

"Isn't that what I just suggested?" Harry complained.

"I'm not talking about his stepfather, Potter!" Snape snapped. "But I suppose I can't expect anything better from a Gryffindor..."

"You know, we're not at Hogwarts anymore--" Harry started to retort, but Tonks interrupted him excitedly.

"Of course! Ash's real father would have motive to kill his former lover, especially after all the fuss caused by Rita Skeeter's article! It would be bad enough for news of an illegitimate child to become public, especially if our anonymous daddy has a wife and family of his own now, but..."

"Having an illegitimate werewolf son would be utterly scandalous, especially if the father is a pureblood of high rank," Snape finished. "It might well be worth killing over, to keep Rosalind Madley from revealing his identity."

"And if he could frame Ash for the murder, then he gets rid of two birds with one stone," Lupin chimed in.

"This is all mere speculation," Dawlish said, but he frowned thoughtfully. "We don't know for sure that Rosalind Madley's lover was a pureblood."

"No, but I think that it's a likely assumption," Snape said. "I checked the school records. Rosalind Madley, formerly Rosalind Parker, was a Slytherin at Hogwarts, which by definition means that she was ambitious. And an ambitious young Slytherin woman isn't likely to seek a Muggle-born or half-blood lover; she would set her sights as high as possible. I also think that her lover must've been a man of high rank, or at least, higher than hers, otherwise her family would have found a way to coerce him into marrying her."

"Well, but it could be the other way around," Kingsley said. "Maybe they wouldn't let her marry him because he was beneath her rank."

"Possibly, but I don't think that she would have wasted her time on a relationship that would be of no benefit to her," Snape argued.

"But even purebloods can fall in love with inappropriate partners," Tonks said with an impish smile. "My mother married a Muggle-born, after all, and was disowned for it, and Severus, you yourself took up with a werewolf."

Lupin grinned at her, and Tonks winked at him, while Snape glowered at them both. "I still think my theory is the most likely one," he said huffily. "But even if her lover isn't a pureblood, he still might not want people to know that he has a werewolf son."

"Even if Randolf's real father is the culprit, which I find rather unlikely, we have no idea who he is," Dawlish objected.

"Well then, as an Auror, isn't it your job to find that out?" Snape retorted scathingly, and Dawlish's face went red with anger.

Tonks snickered softly, but covered it up with a cough as Dawlish turned to glare at her. "We'll look into Rosalind Madley's background, to see if we can uncover the identity of her former lover," Tonks said brightly. "And we'll also investigate Alden Madley, to see if he might have a motive, or if he has an enemy who might want to harm his family."

"Speaking of which, doesn't he have a daughter?" Dawlish asked. "That's what started this whole mess in the first place, after all: Randolf's meeting with Madley's daughter."

"She should be safe at Hogwarts," Lupin said. "But I'll speak to the Headmaster and Professor Sprout, and advise that she stay close to the dorm and not go wandering alone outside of class."

"Especially not near any werewolves," Dawlish growled. "I'm going to ask Dumbledore to ban Randolf from the school until this case is resolved, although I doubt the old man will listen to me." He gave Lupin and Snape a hard look. "It will be on his head, and yours, if any harm comes to the girl."

"I trust Ash," Lupin said quietly. "I don't believe that he would harm anyone except in self-defense, and certainly not a child."

"Well, you didn't see Rosalind Madley's body, Lupin!" Dawlish retorted. "If Randolf did this, I won't just see him locked up in Azkaban, I'll ask for the death penalty! Whoever murdered Mrs. Madley didn't just kill her quickly. He could have killed her in her sleep, but he let her wake up and see him coming." 

He turned to Smethwyck and asked, "You said that there were several shallow, non-lethal wounds on her body, right?" The Healer nodded. "I think that he could have killed her instantly if he'd wanted," Dawlish continued, "but he toyed with her for his own amusement, like a cat with a mouse. That speaks to me of someone with a deep personal grudge, who wanted to make her suffer, not just shut her up and get rid of a potential threat. Someone like a son, who feels abandoned and betrayed by his mother..."

"Someone with a grudge, perhaps, but not Ash," Arthur insisted firmly. "What you've told me only strengthens my belief in him. He isn't a cruel person. I think that he's capable of killing to protect himself or someone that he cares about, but he isn't the type to torture or kill for pleasure."

"We'll have to agree to disagree, Minister," Dawlish said stiffly. "I intend to keep a close eye on that werewolf, even if he has the rest of you fooled! And I'm going to assign an Auror to watch over Alden Madley, in case Randolf decides to kill his stepfather, too. Oh, and by the way, Tonks, if I find out that the other werewolves are covering up for your friend, I'll have them arrested, too!" Then he walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

"Oh dear," Arthur sighed. "I can understand his concerns, but Dawlish is being very single-minded about all this. It's as if he can't even consider the possibility that someone besides Ash might be guilty."

Snape shrugged. "I don't like the man, but he's correct in that Randolf appears to be the most likely suspect, at least on the surface. And he suffered a loss of face when it was proven that the alleged werewolf attacks had been staged by his partner Williamson. I don't think that he would deliberately concoct false evidence the way Williamson did, but he certainly wouldn't mind using the existing evidence to get a little revenge on the werewolves."

"If he wants to get revenge on anyone, it ought to be Williamson!" Harry said disgustedly. "He's the one who was at fault, not the werewolves."

"Yes, but Williamson isn't around, and the werewolves make a convenient target," Lupin sighed. "Human nature isn't always fair or logical, Harry."

"Well, let Dawlish chase down false leads if he wants; we'll find the real killer!" Tonks declared.

"Something bothers me, though," Takeshi said, frowning worriedly. "I can believe that either Alden Madley or Ash's father set up the murder, but who carried out the actual killing? It appears to be a genuine werewolf attack, but I can't picture any of Lukas's pack doing such a thing."

"An Imperius Curse, perhaps?" Kingsley suggested.

Takeshi shook his head. "I'll check with Lukas, but it doesn't seem like any of the pack were missing during the full moon. And much as I hate to admit it, I agree with Dawlish on one point: the killer seemed to enjoy what he was doing. An Imperius Curse could force someone to kill, but not to enjoy it."

"Unless they were commanded to torture as well as kill," Snape said thoughtfully. "Although the more conditions you put on such a curse, the harder it is to keep the victim under your control, particularly when you're forcing them to do something they consider abhorrent. You would have to be both powerful magically and be skilled in the Dark Arts to successfully pull off such a feat, and I don't think that Alden Madley is either."

"And we don't know who Ash's real father is, so we don't know whether he might be a Dark Wizard or not," Tonks mused out loud.

"If he was a Slytherin like Rosalind, he probably has at least some knowledge of the Dark Arts," Snape reluctantly admitted. "But even your average Slytherin doesn't go around casting the Imperius Curse on a regular basis. Also, I don't expect that a Dark Wizard would leave a living witness who might implicate him in the murder, so he would probably kill the assassin after the job was completed. So if none of Diggory's pack is permanently missing, then it's unlikely that any of them were used as an assassin against their will."

"There are a few werewolves who are not part of Master Diggory's pack, though," Smethwyck pointed out. "Perhaps even a few rogues who were never officially registered when the Werewolf Registry was still in effect. So perhaps the culprit somehow bribed or coerced one of those werewolves."

"So we'll look for independent or rogue werewolves," Tonks said.

"You should probably be looking for a dead body," Snape said dryly. "As I said..."

"Right, that the culprit would kill his pawn when he was done with him," Tonks agreed. "Okay, so we'll investigate the Madleys' backgrounds, and be on the lookout for any new murders or mysterious deaths. It would help if you could send us copies of those school records you mentioned earlier, Severus. Her lover might be an old classmate, someone she went to school with. Even if he wasn't, her classmates might at least have an idea of whom she was dating before she got pregnant with Ash."

"A reasonable assumption, Miss Tonks," Snape said, with grudging approval. "Very well, I'll send you Rosalind Parker's transcript, and a list of the students who attended Hogwarts at the same time as she did."

"Thank you, Severus," Tonks said warmly.

Snape just scowled at her and said, a bit sarcastically, "Well, if you think you can manage to solve the murder without any further help from me, Lupin and I will return to Hogwarts. We do have classes to teach, after all." He sounded rather doubtful, though, as if he didn't have much faith in their abilities.

Tonks just nodded pleasantly, although Kingsley and Harry glared at the Potions Master, and Lupin just cheerily waved and said, "Good luck," to the Aurors as he and Snape left. Takeshi and Smethwyck left along with the Professors.

"Can't he ever just say, 'You're welcome'?" Kingsley grumbled.

"That would go against his nature, I think," Arthur chuckled. "But Severus will help us, for Remus's sake, if nothing else. Anytime a werewolf is accused of a crime, it reflects badly on all werewolves, even the ones not directly involved."

"Then we'll have to solve the case quickly, to clear Ash and the rest of the pack from suspicion," Harry said determinedly.

"I have faith in you," Arthur told the three Aurors with a smile, and Harry and Tonks smiled back at him confidently, but Kingsley sighed quietly, because he wasn't so sure that this case would be so easily resolved.

*** 

Later that afternoon, Imogen and Warren visited their father at Azkaban. "The mission was successful, although we had to alter it slightly," Imogen told Walden, handing him a copy of the Daily Prophet. She explained about Alden Madley suddenly leaving on a business trip, and about their decision to go ahead and kill Rosalind alone. "But it seems to have worked out in our favor," Imogen continued. "Her husband gave an interview to Rita Skeeter, accusing his stepson of the crime."

"The Aurors are investigating the murder, in combination with Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures," Warren added. "I have a source at the Ministry who tells me that Richard Dawlish is heading up the investigation, and he's focusing on Randolf as the chief suspect."

"Very good," Walden said, looking pleased. "Everything is going smoothly, then. Your contact doesn't know your true identity, I assume?"

"Of course not, Father," Warren assured him, a little indignantly. "I would never be so careless. I use an assumed name and an illusion to disguise my appearance. I usually don't meet him face-to-face, anyway; we have a designated drop-box where we leave each other messages and where I deposit his payment."

"Forgive me, son," Walden apologized. "I should have known you would take precautions. Is our pet canine behaving himself?"

Imogen nodded. "He completed his task without being caught, which has put him in a good mood, which in turn has made him more biddable. He is eager to take on his next assignment."

"There is a slight problem, though," Warren said, frowning. "Tonks and Shacklebolt disagree with Dawlish and are looking for other suspects. And it seems that Snape and Lupin stopped by the Ministry this morning. My source wasn't sure if they were called in to assist with the investigation, or if they went in on their own to prevent Randolf from being arrested. But it could be a problem if they continue to interfere with the investigation. I'm not sure what they might do, but they managed to help Cyril Diggory win his lawsuit against Amos. Also, Snape was a Death Eater; he might eventually recognize Greyback's handiwork."

"Snape can do a great deal of damage," Walden agreed, scowling. "If he hadn't turned traitor and helped Dumbledore protect the Potter child, we might have won the war."

"We thought that you might help us come up with a plan to distract Snape," Imogen said.

"Hmm, let me think, a threat to his werewolf lover?" Walden mused, thinking out loud. "No, that would only make him more determined to hunt down the culprit. We need to find a distraction that seems completely unrelated to the murder...something that he won't connect with us..."

"His son is working on an archaeological dig in Ireland," Imogen said. "If there was some trouble at the site, Snape might leave to check on his son, and that would take him away from England for awhile."

"Not bad, but it would be a little risky to carry out an attack on a site where a large team of wizards is working," Walden replied, then shook his head. "I still find it hard to believe that Snape adopted Nott's son...wait, that's it!"

"What's it?" Warren asked. "Do you think we should attack Snape's son?"

"No, as with his lover, he wouldn't rest until he found out who was behind it," Walden said. "But Theodore isn't Snape's biological son. He has some Snape blood, but the connection is at least a few generations old."

"Well, yes," Imogen agreed, looking a little puzzled. "Snape has no children of his own, of course, and isn't likely to have any in the future. Which is why his parents agreed to accept Theodore Nott as his heir. Theodore probably has as much Snape blood as anyone else in the wizarding world. All the pureblood families are interbred, to some extent, and Snape has no siblings, or even first cousins."

"Exactly!" Walden said with an air of satisfaction.

"And how does this help us, Father?" Warren asked.

"Snape was able to become the Snape Lord and choose his own heir, despite his scandalous past as a Death Eater and his scandalous present as the lover of a werewolf, because there was no other heir who could take his place," Walden replied. "But if he'd had a brother, an uncle, or even a cousin, he would probably have been passed over as heir. Even an illegitimate child could have legally challenged him for the title and quite possibly have won, so long as his mother was a pureblood."

"Are you saying that Severin Snape had an illegitimate child?!" Warren exclaimed.

"No, Severin was practically a monk," Walden replied. "I'm almost surprised that he managed to spend enough time in his wife's bed to beget Severus on her. But Severin's father Stefan had a few regular mistresses, mainly high-priced courtesans."

"So you think that Stefan Snape might have had a bastard child?" Warren asked, a little doubtfully. "I've never heard any gossip of such a thing."

"It doesn't matter whether he actually sired a bastard or not!" Walden said impatiently. "All that matters is that the possibility exists. Track down an heir, or hire someone to pose as one; I don't care which."

"I see," Imogen said with a sly smile. "All we need to do is to provide a distraction, and a lawsuit challenging Snape for the title will definitely keep him distracted."

"That's my girl," Walden said fondly. "We don't really need our fake heir to win his lawsuit, although it would be nice to snatch the Snape estate right out from under Severus's oversized nose. All we need to do is keep Snape distracted long enough to carry out our plans."

"I see, Father," Warren said. "It shouldn't take long for public opinion to turn against Arthur Weasley once Greyback steps up his killing spree, and once Weasley is deposed, Snape will no longer have any clout within the Ministry."

"That is correct," Walden said approvingly. "Warren, you'll need to make the arrangements for the false heir. I'll give you what information I have on Stefan Snape's women; you need to at least make his background sound convincing, and if one of these woman actually had a child, that's all to the better. As for Alden Madley, you should have Greyback take care of him soon, but I'll leave the timing up to your discretion. He must be careful not to be caught, especially if the Aurors are guarding Madley."

"Yes, Father," Imogen and Warren chorused.

*** 

Lupin informed Tsubasa about Ash's mother's death, but he was unable to leave school early, as he had his own classes to teach, as well as Lukas's to cover. When school was over for the day, he made a quick stop at his quarters, then took the Floo over to the house where Ash lived.

Most of the werewolves in the pack were there, including Aric, and so was Takeshi, both of them still dressed in their St. Mungo's robes. "Smethwyck let us take off early," Takeshi said, smiling at his cousin although his eyes looked worried. "Not that it's done much good, since Ash has been holed up in his room for the past few hours, and refuses to come out, even though Lukas threatened to break down the door. I'm glad you're here; maybe he'll talk to you." Then he frowned as he caught sight of the large gourd jug that Tsubasa was holding. "Although I'm not sure that will help. He's probably already drunk enough Firewhiskey to make a normal human pass out cold."

Tsubasa had been on edge and worried about Ash all day, and the sight of his cousin's disapproving face--less handsome than Tsubasa's but beloved by Ash nonetheless--caused something inside in him to snap. "It's none of your business!" Tsubasa said sharply. "And who appointed you Ash's guardian, anyway?"

Aric growled, a low, threatening rumble, while Takeshi just stared at him wide-eyed, looking startled and a little hurt. "I know that Ash is an adult," Takeshi replied quietly. "I'm just concerned for him as a friend--and a mediwizard. Ash drinks too much when he's upset...well, he drinks too much when's happy, too, actually." Takeshi smiled ruefully. "He drinks too much, period. So far it hasn't really interfered with his work, although I'm sure he's gone to work with a hangover more than once. But it's not healthy to drink that much, even for someone with a werewolf's constitution, so I'm worried about him."

 _Great, so on top of everything else, my would-be boyfriend is a borderline alcoholic,_ Tsubasa thought to himself sourly. Aloud, he said, a bit guiltily, "I'm sorry, Takeshi. I was in a bad mood, but I shouldn't take it out on you."

"It's all right," Takeshi assured him. "I know you're worried about Ash, too." 

"That's no excuse," Aric growled, but he looked placated by Tsubasa's apology.

"I understand your concerns, but believe it or not, I know what I'm doing," Tsubasa told his cousin. "He's going to drink no matter what you say or do, but maybe this--" He held up the jug. "--will at least lure him out of his room."

"I don't think that you really need alcohol to lure him out," Takeshi said with a smile, "but go ahead. Drunk or sober, I don't think he should be alone right now."

Tsubasa went up the stairs and knocked on Ash's door. "Ash? It's me, Tsubasa." He paused, and when there was no response, he continued, "I came to say that I'm very sorry about your mother."

There was another pause, and then he heard the sound of footsteps slowly shuffling towards the door, and then the click of a lock being turned, and the door swung open a crack to give him a glimpse of bloodshot eyes.

"Thanks," Ash said gruffly, and Tsubasa could smell the Firewhiskey on his breath; Takeshi, as usual, was correct--which could be a bit irritating at times. "But that's not necessary. I despised my mother, and I hadn't seen her in years, so I'm fine. It's not like I'm in mourning or anything."

Tsubasa didn't try to argue with him; he just shrugged and said casually, "Well, I guess this will go to waste, then."

He held up the jug and the door opened a little wider. "What is that?" Ash asked with cautious curiosity.

"Tengu-brewed sake," Tsubasa replied. "My friends in Japan gave it to me as a going-away present. I've been saving it for a special occasion, and it's a tengu custom to drink at a wake. Or at a wedding. Or at the birth of a child...and well, just about any time that they can find an excuse to throw a party."

The door opened wider and Ash gave him a faint but sincere smile. "They sound a lot like werewolves."

"In a way, they are," Tsubasa said with a grin. He held the jug up temptingly. "So, would you like to try some? It's supposed to be stronger than Firewhiskey."

"That's hard to imagine," Ash said skeptically.

"You'll never know unless you try," Tsubasa pointed out.

"That's true," Ash said, his smile growing a little wider. He swung the door open all the way and asked, "Would you care to come in and do a taste test?"

Tsubasa felt a sudden burst of heat in his groin as he remembered what had happened the last time he had stepped into the werewolf's bedroom. Repeating the experience would no doubt be pleasurable, but it probably wasn't a very smart idea at the moment.

"Why don't you come downstairs and we'll share it with the pack?" Tsubasa asked lightly. "It's more fun to drink with friends than to drink alone, isn't it?"

"Who sent you up here?" Ash sighed resignedly, leaning against the door frame. "Lukas? Takeshi?"

"No one sent me," Tsubasa said stiffly. "I came on my own, as a friend. Is it really so hard to believe that I would come of my own will to visit a friend whose mother has died?"

"I'm sorry," Ash said, smiling at him apologetically. "All the Firewhiskey has muddled my brain, I suppose. Besides, Takeshi would never send you up here with a bottle of alcohol. He thinks I drink too much."

Tsubasa loved his cousin, but he was really tired of hearing his name--at least when it came out of Ash's mouth. "Don't worry," he said sweetly, holding out his free arm. "I'll protect you from the big bad mediwizard."

All his annoyance vanished when Ash threw back his head and laughed--a real laugh that relaxed his drawn and tense features--and slipped his arm through Tsubasa's. "I'll hold you to that," he chuckled, with a wolfish, sharp-toothed grin.

The contact of Ash's arm against his own, even through the sleeves of their robes, caused Tsubasa's skin to tingle, and he was acutely aware of how close Ash was; he could almost feel the heat radiating off the werewolf's body. There was a little hitch in Ash's breath, and then the sound of his breathing grew louder and hoarser, and he knew that Ash could feel it, too.

 _Maybe this wasn't the greatest idea in the world, either, but oh well,_ Tsubasa thought to himself, and they made their way arm-in-arm down the staircase. The other werewolves greeted them with sly and speculative grins, and when Takeshi smiled at them, Tsubasa's grip on Ash's arm tightened reflexively, despite his misgivings. Ash looked startled for a moment, then smiled at him almost shyly, an expression that seemed out of place on his scarred and normally cynical face, but was all the more endearing for its incongruity. Maybe there was hope for them, after all...

*** 

Several hours later, the jug of sake was empty, and there were several empty Firewhiskey and beer bottles strewn across the table and floor, not to mention several werewolves passed out on the floor. Takeshi must have taught Aric the turning-wine-into-water spell, because the young werewolf was still conscious, although he clearly hadn't turned all of the alcohol into water. His face was slightly flushed, and he looked a little tipsy as he pulled Takeshi onto his lap and nuzzled his neck.

"Not in public, dear," Takeshi said coyly, but he made no move to fend off Aric's advances.

Meanwhile, Ash was still conscious, but no longer able to stay upright, and he collapsed across the couch, his head conveniently landing on Tsubasa's lap. "Thass good stuff," he mumbled in a slurred voice. "Really is strong as you say."

Tsubasa supposed he ought to push Ash off his lap, but the werewolf looked so content that he didn't have the heart. Besides, there was no danger of things getting out of hand when Ash was so intoxicated that he could barely move. "Indeed it is," Tsubasa murmured, gently stroking Ash's hair, taking a guilty pleasure in the feel of it sliding through his fingers. "My tengu friends would be impressed that you are still conscious."

"Hmm," Aric said, temporarily halting his nuzzling to ponder the question of tengu sake versus Firewhiskey. "I'd say that the sake is a little stronger, but the Firewhiskey burns more going down your throat."

"Fair enough; it is called 'Firewhiskey,' after all," Tsubasa agreed. He'd sampled a little of both, not enough to get drunk, but enough to concur with Aric's assessment--and his cousin's joking statement that the Firewhiskey could be used a substitute for paint thinner.

Lukas rose to his feet unsteadily, saying, "Well, things seem to be under control here." He smiled at Ash and Tsubasa. "And if I don't get home soon, Narcissa's going to kill me."

"You're going to feel the sharp edge of her tongue as it is, coming home smelling of whiskey," Kyra said with a grin. She and her husband Brian were among the few werewolves left that were still conscious and mostly sober.

"That's true," Lukas sighed, then grinned back at her. "Ah well, I'd rather have a woman with a fierce temper than those proper pureblood women who just cringe and nod at whatever their husbands say."

"Lucky for you," Kyra said dryly as Lukas vanished through the fireplace in a puff of green smoke.

"Well, the party seems to be over," Brian yawned, gesturing at the unconscious and half-conscious bodies sprawled across the room. "Maybe we should call it a night and go to bed."

"Yeah, bed sounds great right about now," Aric growled in a low voice, nipping at Takeshi's neck.

"Aric!" he protested, laughing and blushing as he jumped to his feet. "Yes, I guess maybe we should get home before I need to put you on a leash."

"Um...Ash?" Tsubasa said to the occupant of his lap, who didn't look inclined to move. 

Kyra got up, grabbed Ash by the shoulder, and gave him a firm shake. "Come on, Sleeping Beauty, upstairs to your own bed. Maybe Arthur gave you the day off, but the Professor here has to work tomorrow."

"But 'm comfy," he protested sleepily.

"Yes, I'm sure you're comfy, pack brother," Kyra said dryly. "But I think Tsubasa would like his lap back. Come on, up!"

She shook him again, and in response, Ash burrowed his face a little deeper into Tsubasa's lap--a little too close to his crotch for comfort, especially since he hadn't drunk enough alcohol to dampen his libido.

Tsubasa let out a little yelp and shouted, "Ash!" as he gave the werewolf a sharp rap on the head with his fist. "Watch where you're putting your face!"

Ash managed, with some effort, to raise himself off Tsubasa's lap. "Sorry," he said, rubbing his head and smiling sheepishly, although there was a glint of laughter in his eyes.

The other werewolves burst into laughter. "Ah, don't worry, Tsubasa," Kyra chuckled. "He's too drunk to get it up right now, anyway." She grinned at him slyly. "Or is that a disappointment?"

"Don' go insulting my manhood," Ash growled good-naturedly, lurching to his feet--and then almost keeling over, but Tsubasa managed to catch him before he fell. "Might need a little help getting to bed," he mumbled.

"You think?" Kyra asked sarcastically.

Ash managed to make his way upstairs by being half supported, half dragged along by Tsubasa. His hearing wasn't quite as good as a werewolf's, but Tsubasa overheard Kyra muttering to herself in surprise, "The pretty bird is stronger than he looks."

Ash collapsed onto the bed, and Tsubasa pulled off his shoes, but didn't try to undress him further. He was still aroused from the lap incident, and he didn't want to be tempted by the sight of a half-naked Ash. The fact that Ash reeked of alcohol and was only half-conscious put something of a damper on his desire, but not nearly as much as it should have.

"Thanks for coming," Ash told him. "I 'preciate it."

"You're welcome," Tsubasa replied.

"And...er...sorry 'bout the lap thing," Ash added, although his mischievous grin didn't look contrite at all.

Tsubasa couldn't help smiling back at him. "Next time," he whispered in a sultry voice, bending down to brush his lips against Ash's, "don't start something you can't finish." He laughed at the stunned look on Ash's face, then said goodnight, and returned to Hogwarts.

"Oh crap," he sighed as he stepped into his quarters. "I need another cold shower. I might as well just have the house-elves shut off the hot water altogether." But still, the memory of Ash resting peacefully in his lap brought a smile to his lips.

*** 

While Dawlish was trying to gather evidence to prove that Ash had murdered his mother, Kingsley, Tonks, and Harry continued their own investigation. It was decided that Kingsley would interview Rosalind Madley's friends and family, since most of them were purebloods, or at least liked to claim that they were, and as such, were unlikely to be forthcoming with a half-blood like Tonks.

As for Harry, the potential witnesses were likely to be intimidated by his celebrity as the Savior of the Wizarding World, even if they weren't offended by his Muggle blood, so Kingsley went off alone, somewhat to Harry's disappointment. Helping Tonks go through a stack of school records wasn't exactly exciting work, but on the other hand, interviewing a bunch of snooty purebloods didn't sound like much fun, either, so maybe he and Tonks had the better end of the deal, after all.

"This isn't exactly what I thought Auror work would be like," Harry sighed, as he set aside one folder and reached for another. Snape had sent them Rosalind Parker's school transcripts, as well as a list of students she had gone to school with. It was likely that Rosalind's lover had been a fellow Slytherin, but they couldn't be certain of that, so Snape had included the names of the Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Gryffindor students as well. 

And since they could not be certain that Rosalind's lover had been in the same year as her, Snape had sent along the records for every student that Rosalind might have conceivably crossed paths with, which covered about six years prior to and six years after her entry into Hogwarts, in addition to her yearmates--which all added up to a huge stack of paperwork. On top of that, Tonks had also gathered a list of people who had done business with Rosalind's father around the time that she had conceived Ash.

"What, Harry, did you expect flashy duels and midnight broomstick chases?" Tonks asked with a grin and a wink. "That does happen occasionally when you catch up to the suspect, but finding him in the first place usually involves a lot of tedious and boring investigating."

"Do you think that Snape sent all this paperwork over on purpose?" Harry asked glumly. "Surely this can't all be relevant! I think he must be getting back at me for every real and imagined slight that I committed against him at Hogwarts." 

Mostly imagined, Harry thought, but he admitted to himself that there were a few incidents that he really was responsible for--the time he had thrown a firecracker into a cauldron of Swelling Solution during Potions class as a distraction, for example, or the time he had spied in the Pensieve, or the time that he, Ron, and Hermione had knocked out Snape and helped Sirius escape when everyone had still thought that he was a murderer...although really, that shouldn't count since Sirius had been innocent. But the words "fair" and "rational" were rarely used to describe the Potions Master...

Tonks laughed and said, "I think that Severus was just being thorough, Harry. It's up to us to weed down the list of suspects. For starters, you can eliminate all the girls, since none of them could've had made Rosalind pregnant. And you can probably eliminate the boys who were younger than her, since it seems that she had Ash about a year after she left Hogwarts. It's just barely possible that she could have met a school-age lover for an assignation during a Hogsmeade visit or a Quidditch game, but it seems rather unlikely. You should go over their names just to be thorough, but you should concentrate mainly on the boys her age or a little older."

"That helps some," Harry admitted. "But I'm still not exactly sure what I'm looking for."

"Someone from a prominent pureblood family, who would be shamed by a werewolf son," Tonks replied.

"Doesn't that cover nearly everyone in Slytherin?" Harry pointed out.

"Well, right now, we're just drawing up a list of potential suspects, Harry," Tonks replied patiently. "When Kingsley comes back, we can cross-reference with his information and see if any of those names turned up in his interviews."

"Right," Harry said, blushing a little; he should've been able to figure that out for himself.

"Don't worry," Tonks said kindly, patting him on the shoulder. "You're still new at this, but you'll soon get the hang of it."

Harry smiled at her and determinedly began copying names onto a sheet of parchment, making notes here and there when he came across someone who might be a likely suspect, but his eyes were strained and his wrist was sore by the time that Kingsley returned.

"So what did you find out?" Tonks asked.

"Not much," Kingsley sighed. "I hope you two had better luck than I did. I learned from Mrs. Madley's friends that she was a very beautiful and ambitious girl when she was at Hogwarts, but no one seemed to know whom her lover might be."

"Surely such a beautiful girl would have had at least a few boyfriends," Tonks said.

Kingsley smiled wryly. "It seems that she aimed above her station, always setting her sights on the boys of highest rank, but they would have nothing to do with her, because her blood wasn't pure enough. The Parkers claim to be purebloods, but there are a few unexplained gaps on the family tree that make them suspect in the eyes of the 'real' purebloods. The friends gave me a few names of boys she dated, but they were all short-term and not serious, at least according to the friends. We'll investigate further to be sure, but I don't think that any of these men are our suspect. What about you two?"

"Well, I noticed that there were several Death Eaters on the list of students that Snape gave us," Harry replied. "Amycus Carrow was in Slytherin, and the same age as her..."

"Ugh," Tonks said, shuddering in revulsion. "I remember him; a squat, lumpy fellow who looked like a toad, and had the most disgusting leer. I can't imagine that any woman would willingly let him touch her."

"An ambitious woman who cares more about his money and rank than his looks might," Kingsley said dryly. "But Carrow is dead. One of the werewolves snapped his neck during the final battle, and good riddance. I suppose it's possible that a family member could have taken revenge for him, but it seems like a remote possibility at this point. Go on, Harry."

"Another Death Eater, Jugson, was also in her year, and Macnair was a year above her," Harry continued. "And another one, Travers, was six years above her, but since she'd only have known him for one year, when she was a first-year and he was a seventh, it doesn't seem likely that he could be her secret boyfriend." He frowned thoughtfully. "Although I guess that they could have met again after she graduated. Um, and let's see, Avery and Nott were five years below her, but I don't think that she would have been having an affair with anyone that young."

"Good work, Harry," Kingsley said. "A Death Eater would certainly have motive to cover up the fact that he had a child with impure blood. The problem is that they're all dead or in prison, so they couldn't have murdered Rosalind personally."

"But like you said, a family member could have killed on their behalf," Tonks pointed out. "By the way, is someone still keeping an eye on the Macnair twins?"

Kingsley frowned. "No, Dawlish pulled them off surveillance duty, saying it was a waste of time and he needed someone to guard Alden Madley. And they weren't much good, anyway, since the Macnairs seemed to catch on pretty quick that someone was watching them. They've behaved themselves publicly, and there hasn't been any suspicious Floo activity, but who knows where they might be Apparating to when no one's looking? We can't spy inside their mansion. I hear that they visit their father regularly, so he could have given them orders to kill Mrs. Madley, but we'd need some solid proof in order to get an arrest warrant or even just a warrant to search the mansion."

"Snape said that Macnair loved his children and didn't want to put them in danger," Harry said thoughtfully. "Isn't ordering them to kill someone pretty dangerous? They'd be arrested if they were caught, and they could have been attacked by the werewolf that they used as an assassin."

"Good point," Kingsley conceded. "Although if they're loyal children, they might have decided to protect their father's honor on their own, without his knowledge or consent. We'll definitely keep the Macnairs on our suspect list, but I think it's more likely that Ash's father, whomever he is, would have planned the murder by himself. He'd want as few people as possible to know of his disgrace."

"Even his family?" Harry asked.

"In some cases, especially his family," Kingsley replied solemnly. "His own family might well turn against him if he brought dishonor upon them. You saw how quick most of the Death Eaters' families were to distance themselves from their disgraced relatives."

"Speaking of Death Eaters," Tonks said, "I have a Death Eater on my list, too. Rosalind's father was--and still is--an editor at WhizzHard Books."

"Didn't they publish 'Quidditch through the Ages?'" Harry asked.

"Yes, which did impress some of Rosalind's classmates, although not the ones that she really hoped to impress," Kingsley replied. "Mr. Parker never mentioned anything about working with a Death Eater, though."

"Probably doesn't want to admit to guilt by association," Tonks said. "But years ago, around the time that Rosalind would have conceived Ash, WhizzHard did publish a history on wizard genealogy that was actually a thinly-veiled treatise on pureblood superiority. And guess who wrote it? Augustus Rookwood!"

"Rookwood?" Harry asked, startled. "Isn't he...well...old? Old enough to be her father, surely!"

Tonks shrugged. "Well, it wouldn't be the first time that a wealthy older man seduced a girl young enough to be his daughter. That might explain why he never married her, since he was already married to someone else. And I believe that his son is about Rosalind's age."

Harry scanned his list, then began leafing through the school records. "I don't see a Rookwood on the list of students."

"I think his son went to Durmstrang," Kingsley replied. "Well, Rookwood's in prison, too, but I'll check on the son. Rookwood's family has publicly disavowed him and claimed that they had no knowledge of his Death Eater activities, but that might just be for show. I can talk to Mr. Parker again, see if he remembers Rookwood or his son being friendly with Rosalind, but even if he did, I'm not sure that he'd tell me." 

Kingsley scowled. "Mrs. Madley's friends seemed sad that she was dead, or were at least courteous enough to pretend to be sad, but her family acted like her death was nothing but a huge inconvenience for them. They complained about how she disgraced them, first by bearing a child out of wedlock, and then by marrying a Mudblood, although apparently that was slightly better than being an unwed mother. 'And even in death, she has to draw scandal down upon us,' her father complained. Not one of them shed a single tear that I could see, or voiced any concern about seeing the murderer brought to justice; all they cared about was their reputation. Now, it's true that Rosalind Madley appears to have been a shallow and selfish woman with few redeeming qualities, but still, no matter who you are or what you've done, your own flesh and blood ought to mourn you when you're dead. Even Ash, as much as he hated his mother, showed more reaction to her death than her parents and her brother did."

"That seems sad," Harry said quietly. "Even if she wasn't a nice person, I can't help but feel a little sorry for her."

Kingsley sighed and rubbed the top of his bald head, as he often did when he was distracted. "Well, her daughter must mourn her, at least. By all accounts, she was a good mother to her daughter, if not to her son."

"What about Alden Madley?" Tonks asked. "Did you find out anything about their marriage, if things were bad enough that he might want to kill his wife?"

"Well, Alden Madley has an alibi for the night of the murder," Kingsley replied. "Although if he hired an assassin, he wouldn't have needed to be in England at the time. The people I talked to all said that Alden Madley was completely smitten with his wife when they first wed, but things gradually began to cool off after a couple of years--I suppose he must have realized that she only married him in order to gain a father for her son and make herself respectable again. 

"Their acquaintances say that their relationship was cool and distant, but not particularly rancorous--the way many arranged marriages often turn out. Despite the state of their marriage, there's no evidence that either Mr. or Mrs. Madley was having an affair, and everyone agrees that they were both loving parents to their daughter. Of course, it's possible that the stress of recent events could have caused Madley to snap, and if he abused Ash as a child, he's certainly capable of violence, but still...his outburst in the morgue seemed genuine. If he was faking it, the man's a great actor."

"Well, it still seems a bit suspicious to me," Tonks said skeptically. "The marriage has been on the outs for years, but suddenly he turns into the hysterical, grieving widower when his wife dies?"

"Emotions can remain pent-up for years, but yes, I have a few doubts, too," Kingsley agreed. "Unfortunately, he refused to talk to me once he figured out that I was looking for a suspect other than Ash, and Dawlish backed him up."

"Dawlish!" Tonks said disgustedly. "And after he said he would be more open-minded in the future after being wrong the last time--what a hypocrite!"

"Did he really say that?" Harry asked, finding it hard to believe.

"Hmm...well, no, actually he said something about being careful to investigate his cases more thoroughly in the future, but it amounts to the same thing," Tonks replied. "He isn't doing a proper investigation; he's only focusing on Ash without looking for any other suspects."

"It just doesn't make sense to me," Harry said, shaking his head. "If Ash wanted to kill his parents, why wouldn't he have done it long ago, after he'd first been turned, instead of waiting so many years to get his revenge?"

Kingsley shrugged. "Well, I suppose Dawlish would say that Ash tried to forget about the past, but the newspaper article and his stepfather's visit to the Ministry provoked him and stirred up old feelings of hatred. Personally, while I believe that Ash is capable of killing under the right circumstances, I think that he would go about it in a much smarter fashion. Before he joined the Ministry, he was a smuggler, and a very successful one, which means that he was good at eluding the law. I think he'd try to set up a better alibi for himself, and he certainly wouldn't kill his mother in a way that would make it obvious that a werewolf had done it."

Harry wasn't sure that Kingsley's theoretical picture of Ash as a clever killer was really a vote of confidence, and judging by Tonks's ironic little smile, she felt the same way. "Did you find out if the Madleys had any other enemies who might want to harm them?" he asked, changing the subject.

Kingsley shook his head. "Alden Madley has a few business rivals that he's offended, but none so badly that they would want to kill him or his wife. As for Rosalind, she seems to be a nonentity. No one except her family seems to care enough about her to hate her. I might suspect her parents of wanting to get rid of their problem daughter, except that they wouldn't have done it in such a sensational manner. They would have done it quietly, maybe try to make it look like natural causes."

"So basically, we're back to square one," Tonks sighed.

"Give us the rest of the names, Harry," Kingsley suggested. "Anyone else stand out to you?"

"Not really," Harry said, wishing he had something more to offer. "There are a number of prominent pureblood names on the list, though. Let's see...there was a Bailey Flint in Rosalind's year, and the Flints are a pretty important family, right? Snape made Marcus Flint Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team several years ago, after all."

"Bailey Flint?" Kingsley asked, sounding startled. "No, you can cross him off your list, Harry. He died years ago, during the first war. I don't know all the details, but I believe that he was a victim of the Death Eaters."

Harry nodded and continued reciting names. "Montague...Baddock...Davis...Warrington...Bulstrode..." When he finished with the Slytherin names, he went over the Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, and Ravenclaw names, just to be sure that he hadn't missed anything.

"Well, nothing rings a bell," Kingsley sighed. "All right, we'll start investigating, starting with the Death Eater families and the most prominent Slytherins. We'll see if any of them have been hanging around Knockturn Alley recently...that's where most people go to find killers for hire. I don't think there would be many rogue werewolves hanging around so close to Lukas's pack, though..."

"Maybe Lukas might have an idea of where the rogues might be found," Tonks said. "Or Takeshi might, if they come to the clinic to get Wolfsbane Potion."

"Good idea," Kingsley said approvingly. "All right, let's get to work." He smiled sympathetically at Harry. "I'm afraid that this is going to involve a lot of tedious legwork, Harry."

Harry repressed a groan and said gamely, "Sure, Kingsley; it's all part of the job, right?" But inwardly, he was wondering why he had ever thought that being an Auror would be an exciting job.

*** 

The investigation wasn't just tedious; it was frustrating. They reviewed hours of Floo logs for suspicious activity, but found none, but it was difficult to know what they were looking for. Certainly no one had traveled by Floo anywhere near the Madleys' residence on the night of the murder. Potential witnesses in Knockturn Alley were all closemouthed and leery of talking to Aurors; "I didn't see nothing" seemed to be the most common response to any question they were asked.

They didn't even bother talking to the potential suspects. "It's a waste of time at this point, until we narrow the list down," Kingsley told Harry. "No one's going to just admit to fathering Ash or killing Rosalind Madley. We need more specific information, so we know what questions to ask."

Harry thought that Ash's friend Takeshi Kimura would be more helpful, but he seemed strangely reluctant. "Patient records are confidential; you know that," the mediwizard told Kingsley when he asked for the names and addresses of any werewolves who frequented the clinic who were not part of the pack belonging to Master Diggory.

"Damn it, Kimura, it's your friend that I'm trying to save from being falsely arrested for murder!" Kingsley snapped.

"I know that!" Takeshi retorted. "Ash is one of my best friends; don't you think that I want to help him? But if the werewolves find out that I sent Aurors after them, they'll never come back to the clinic, which means that they'll stop taking their Wolfsbane Potion, which in turn puts them and everyone else in the wizarding world at risk! You have no idea how hard it's been to win their trust, to convince them that the Distribution Program isn't some kind of trick to capture them or put them on a secret Registry!"

"Look, I know that you've been doing good work here," Kingsley said, fighting to keep his temper under control. "But how much good do you think it will do if Dawlish manages to convict Ash of the murder? Setting aside the issue of your best friend rotting in prison for a crime he didn't commit, the bad publicity will drastically affect every other werewolf in the wizarding world. The Wizengamot might even force Arthur to repeal the equal rights bill and reinstate the Werewolf Registry!"

The mediwizard sighed wearily. "Even if I wanted to, I don't think that I could be of much help to you, Mr. Shacklebolt. There are only a few werewolves who come to this clinic that aren't part of Lukas's pack, and they won't give me their addresses. They're paranoid about their friends and neighbors and colleagues finding out about their lycanthropy, and they don't dare have the potion owled to their homes, or even a post office box. They come and pick it up personally every month, usually just after opening or just before closing, when there aren't many people around, and they're very secretive and furtive. I only know their first names, which might or might not be real."

Kingsley sighed irritably. "Well, did any of them behave strangely this month, seem frightened or act excited or say they'd come into a lot of money?"

"You're thinking that one of them might have been coerced or bribed?" Takeshi asked. He thought it over, then shook his head slowly. "No, there was nothing that seemed out of character. If I hear of anything, I'll let you know."

"Why don't these werewolves want to join Master Diggory's pack?" Harry asked curiously.

"The werewolves in Lukas's pack had nothing to lose," Takeshi explained, smiling sadly. "They had already lost their homes, families, and jobs, so they were grateful to find a place to belong. These other independent werewolves still have families and jobs, which they desperately want to keep, so they don't want anyone to find out about their lycanthropy. Despite the equal rights bill, most people are still biased against werewolves."

"Do you know of somewhere that the suspect might have gone to find a rogue werewolf?" Tonks asked. "Knockturn Alley would normally be the obvious place, but none of the pack werewolves were approached by anyone, and they would probably have spotted an outsider hanging around in their territory."

"Well, most of the rogues are living quietly, trying to pass as human, which makes them hard to track down," Takeshi replied. "They hate and fear the part of them that is wolf, so I don't think that any of them would willingly take wolf form to kill someone, not even for a significant bribe, but I suppose it's possible that one of them might have been coerced. By the Imperius, perhaps, or a loved one taken hostage. But as I said, none of the werewolves that I deal with seemed frightened or upset, as if they were under duress. A few rogues live among the Muggles, because it's easier to hide your lycanthropy from people who don't believe in werewolves. And there are rumors of rogues who have gone feral and live in the wild far away from civilization, but I don't know whether they're true or not." 

He named a few places where the "feral" werewolves were rumored to live, mainly areas remote enough that a werewolf might go undetected by the nearest village, or places where people feared to venture because they had a Dark reputation, like the Forbidden Forest.

Kingsley dutifully wrote down the information, although he didn't look thrilled at the prospect of tromping through a remote Dark forest to look for a werewolf who might or might not be there. "There's one more possibility," Takeshi added, almost as an afterthought, as the Aurors were about to leave. "Some werewolves were committed to institutions by their families--a convenient way to get rid of an inconvenient relative who might otherwise disgrace the family."

"You mean...like a madhouse?" Harry asked hesitantly.

"They're called 'sanatoriums' or 'private hospitals,' but they're essentially prisons," Takeshi replied, grimacing. "That sort of thing is forbidden now under the equal rights bill, but I'm sure that there were many werewolves who were committed before it went into effect."

"But can't they be freed now that the law has changed?" Harry demanded, aghast at the thought of werewolves still being imprisoned after they were supposedly decreed "equal". He knew that the wizarding world had changed for the better after Voldemort had been defeated, but sometimes it felt like things had hardly changed at all.

"The ones that we could find were freed or at least transferred to a better facility, where they could get proper care," Takeshi said softly, a sad and bitter look in his eyes. "You see, after years of confinement in a small cell, most werewolves go mad or kill themselves--or both. But most of these sanatoriums pride themselves on being 'discreet,' which means that they're very secretive, and try to keep their locations--and in fact, their very existence--hidden from the authorities and the public at large. But the information is quietly passed on, in whispered rumors, among the families of purest blood and highest rank, and of course, wealth--because a place in one of these institutions costs a small fortune. Not so much for the room and board of your inconvenient relative, but for the staff's 'discretion'."

"So the assassin could have come from one of these institutions?" Tonks asked. 

"Possibly," Takeshi said with a shrug. "His family wouldn't miss him, because they'd never expect to see him again. The main problem would be in actually finding the place. An institution that would lock someone up for money could just as easily be bribed to free them, although it would cost a huge amount of money, maybe twice the original fee. Or the murderer could have found a way to break the werewolf out of the institution. The staff would hardly be able to report an escape or kidnapping to the authorities, since they're operating illegally, not to mention the fact that all the publicity would scare off their clients."

"Hmm, that sounds like a good lead," Kingsley said, sounding pleased. "Do you know where I can find any of these institutions?"

"If I knew that, I would already have turned them in to the Ministry," Takeshi replied.

"Of course," Kingsley sighed. "It couldn't possibly be that easy."

The mediwizard smiled at him sympathetically. "But you could ask the families of 'purest blood and highest rank'."

"You don't mean Professor Snape, do you?" Harry groaned.

Takeshi chuckled. "There are other old pureblood families besides the Snapes, but I doubt that the others would be inclined to share that sort of information with the Ministry. Well, Sirius would, but he doesn't have the information. His mother's portrait might know, but she would never tell it to her black-sheep son. You could try Narcissa Malfoy--I mean, Diggory--but the best place to start would be with Professor Snape and his mother. The Death Eaters might have found recruits or victims in such places, and well...I've never asked him about the details, but at some point, he would have had to test the Wolfsbane Potion on actual werewolves when he was developing it. He would have had to have found test subjects somewhere." 

Harry swallowed hard, wondering if those "test subjects" had been willing volunteers. Meanwhile, the mediwizard continued, "And Lady Selima knows almost everything there is to know about the wizarding world, particularly pureblood secrets and scandals."

They met with Snape at Hogwarts, and he gave them the names and locations of a couple of sanatoriums, although he said that Dumbledore had seen to it that the werewolves who had served as his test subjects were quietly set free in exchange for their help. "It's a good idea, though," Snape grudgingly conceded. "I hadn't stopped to consider that the murderer might have recruited his assassin from one of those places. Naturally the werewolf would agree to just about anything to win his or her freedom."

"Her?" Harry asked, startled. It hadn't occurred to him that the killer might be a woman.

Snape smirked at him condescendingly. "There's no reason why a woman can't be just as cruel and vicious as a man, Potter. You of all people should know that--remember Bellatrix Lestrange?"

He was right, but he didn't have to be such a jerk about it, Harry thought disgruntledly. They paid a visit to Snape Manor next, and Lady Selima was much politer than her son, but only moderately helpful.

"I have heard of such places, of course," she said coolly. "But I have never had cause to make use of them, so I do not know of their exact locations. However, I have heard that if someone leaves a message and a fee of one-hundred Galleons at a certain drop box, they will be contacted by a go-between who can put them in touch with one of these facilities."

Selima calmly paused to sip a cup of tea, and Kingsley asked impatiently, "Well, where can we find this drop box, then?"

"You must understand, Mr. Shacklebolt, that the power I have built up as the Lady of the Snape family lies mainly in my ability to gather information," Selima said. "If it becomes common knowledge that I am spilling pureblood secrets to Ministry agents, then no one will share information with me, and I will lose my precious commodity."

"We'll be very discreet, Lady Selima," Tonks promised. "We won't tell anyone where we got the information from."

"It's still a risk," Selima replied. "If I do this for you, what can you offer me in return?"

"You'd be helping one of your son's friends!" Kingsley snapped.

"If I am not mistaken, he is actually Professor Lupin's friend, not my son's," Selima replied, her voice still cool and composed. "He is a stranger to me; why should I go out of my way to help him?" As Tonks frowned and Kingsley fumed, Selima smiled slyly. "Well, I suppose that I could allow one of you..." Her eyes drifted from Kingsley to Tonks to Harry. "...to owe me a favor. Mr. Potter, perhaps?"

Harry wasn't too keen on owing a favor to Snape's mother, but he wanted to help Ash. "Well..." he said hesitantly.

"Yes, we could do you a favor!" Kingsley snapped. "For example, we won't tell your new best friend Mrs. Weasley how uncooperative you're being. This particular werewolf is a personal friend of Arthur Weasley, and I'm sure that the Minister and his wife would be most distressed to learn that you refused to help us."

"Is that a threat, Mr. Shacklebolt?" Selima asked, but she looked amused rather than angry. "Well played, but a good pureblood should phrase his threats more subtly."

"What can I say? I'm a disgrace to my race," Kingsley said sarcastically.

Harry was struck by a sudden burst of inspiration. "But Lady Selima," he said earnestly, "you won't be trading something for nothing. You'd be trading information for information."

"Oh?" Selima asked, sounding intrigued.

"The Professor thinks that Ash's father is a very high-ranking pureblood," Harry replied. "Your information could help us find out his identity. Isn't that a piece of information worth knowing?"

Selima laughed, looking surprised. "Very clever, Mr. Potter! But if this mysterious father is the true murderer, as Severus believes, his identity will soon be known to everyone when you arrest him."

"If we arrest him," Kingsley said, emphasizing the "if". "Which we won't be able to do without any leads. And of course there is the possibility that Ash's natural father has nothing to do with the murder."

"Even if the information is made public, wouldn't it still be worth it to see a rival family humbled?" Tonks cajoled.

"Very well," Selima agreed with a smile. "Since you are all so persuasive, I will help you on the condition that you do not tell anyone that I gave you the information, and that you share the name of Mr. Randolf's father with me, regardless of whether or not he turns out to be the culprit."

"Oh, all right," Kingsley said, giving in with ill grace.

After they left Snape Manor, Kingsley grumbled, "I sure hope this information was worth it."

"It's nothing she couldn't find out on her own anyway," Tonks said with a shrug. "If Ash's father is guilty, it will make front page news in the Daily Prophet, and even if it turns out that he's innocent, she could probably coax the information out of Lupin or Lukas."

"She gave in pretty easily," Harry mused.

"She probably intended to help us all along," Tonks said with a grin. "It just goes against her pureblood principles to do something altruistic; it might ruin her reputation."

"Like mother, like son," Kingsley sighed, rolling his eyes. "All right, let's send a message to this drop box, and see if we can track down these sanatoriums."

"Um...by the way, where are we getting the hundred Galleons from?" Harry asked.

"Oh right," Tonks said. "We'll have to fill out a Request for Special Expenses form, and write a justification for why we need the money, and..."

Kingsley and Harry groaned in chorus.

*** 

Snape and Lupin were both worried about the murder of Rosalind Madley, for different reasons. Lupin was concerned about Ash, of course, while Snape was more worried about the effect that the murder would have on public opinion, which could in turn affect the equal rights bill that had given the werewolves their freedom. A repeal of the law would adversely affect Lupin, the one werewolf who mattered most in the world to Snape.

At the moment, there was little that they could do except to hope that the Aurors would find the killer quickly. So the annual Quidditch team tryouts provided a welcome distraction from their worries.

No one in Slytherin was surprised when Snape appointed Dylan as both Captain and Seeker of the Slytherin team. He was Snape's foster son and protege, after all, but there was no grumbling about nepotism, because everyone was aware that Dylan was the best flyer in Slytherin, and possibly the entire school.

Dylan promoted the reserve team Chasers, Malcolm Baddock and Brad Doherty, to regular status. Damien Pierce remained in his original Chaser position, and Dylan picked Brandon Harper to replace Millicent Bulstrode as Keeper, and a couple of younger Slytherin boys, Vaisey and Urquhart, to replace Crabbe and Goyle as Beaters. He also chose a few reserve players, Pansy's little brother Patrick among them.

"Harper is not as skilled a Keeper as Bulstrode was, but he shows potential," Snape observed as he watched from the stands with Lupin. "I believe he'll do well enough once he gains some experience. Urquhart and Vaisey aren't as strong as Crabbe and Goyle, but they're a lot brighter, so I suppose that evens things out. It will take some time to get the new team members properly trained, but the Chasers are all experienced and work well together, and of course Dylan will make a fine Seeker. I'd say we have a pretty strong team and a good chance of taking the Quidditch Cup again this year--especially since Potter has graduated." Snape smirked. "McGonagall and I are wagering our annual bet, of course."

"You shouldn't count your chickens before they're hatched, Severus," Lupin chuckled. "You never know, there might be a budding prodigy on one of the other teams. Perhaps we should scout out the competition?"

"Hmm, that's not a bad idea, Lupin," Snape conceded, so they discreetly observed the other Houses' tryouts from the Astronomy Tower with Professor Sinistra's telescopes. Ravenclaw had a decent team, but Snape was confident that their Seeker was no match for Dylan. Their Keeper was quite skilled, though, so he made a mental note to advise Dylan that he would need to put some extra work into the Chasers' strategies. Hufflepuff's new Seeker was relatively weak, but they might become a threat again next year when Tristan Ames's ban on playing Quidditch would be lifted.

But the team that Snape was most interested in, of course, was his arch-rival Gryffindor, and he was curious to see whom they would choose to replace Potter. It would certainly be a daunting task for whoever was going to replace the Savior of the Wizarding World. He thought that perhaps Ginny Weasley would take over as Seeker, since she had performed respectably in that position a couple of years ago when Umbridge had banned Potter from the team, even if she lacked the golden boy's brilliance in the air. 

It was the only thing that Potter was truly brilliant at, Snape thought to himself a bit sourly. He had defeated Voldemort, of course, but that had been due more to fate and the connection forged between them by the Dark Lord's rebounded Killing Curse than to any particular skill of Potter's. Then Snape gloated a little, because with Potter gone, he was certain that Slytherin would have no difficulty defeating Gryffindor this year.

But to his surprise, Ginny decided to remain a Chaser, and held tryouts to fill the vacated Seeker position. "It's the most prestigious spot on the team, and I would have thought as the new Captain, she'd elect to take it herself," Snape told Lupin as they watched from the Tower.

Lupin smiled and said, "You're thinking like a Slytherin, not a Gryffindor, my love. Ginny is a practical and sensible girl, and she'll do what is best for the team, not just what is best for her personally. Besides, she mentioned once that she actually preferred being a Chaser."

"'Sensible' isn't really a Gryffindor trait," Snape muttered sarcastically. "It isn't really a Weasley trait, either, come to think of it, although I'll admit that Miss Weasley has more common sense than all her brothers combined. Besides, none of the potential Seekers so far appear to be more capable than Miss Weasley."

A great many Seeker hopefuls had turned out for the tryouts, but most of them were rather lacking in talent. A few were competent, and one girl, Demelza Robins, was quite nimble in the air and showed a particular talent for dodging Bludgers, but her skills were more suited to the position of Chaser than Seeker.

Snape was feeling rather smug until the last hopeful applicant took to the air, and Snape saw a very familiar little dark-haired girl flitting through the air like a hummingbird, determinedly keeping pace with the Snitch despite its sudden and erratic movements. What was even more impressive was that she was riding a rather old Comet broomstick--a decent brand, but nowhere near the quality of a Nimbus or Firebolt.

"Is that...Allegra Zabini?" Snape asked incredulously. 

"It certainly looks like her," Lupin replied cheerfully. "She appears to be doing quite well, don't you think?"

"I had no idea she could fly like that!"

"Oh, I heard that she'd done quite well in her first-year flying lessons," Lupin said casually. "Although she doesn't quite have the natural genius of someone like Harry or Tristan. But she is a talented flyer, and it looks like she did a lot of practicing over the summer."

"Practicing?" Snape echoed. He had a vague recollection of Dylan saying something about giving Allegra a few flying lessons during summer vacation, but he had thought nothing of it at the time.

Snape confronted Dylan and Blaise later in the dungeon, and Dylan sheepishly confirmed, "Yes, I did help her out a bit over the summer."

"You're not supposed to be helping the competition, Mr. Rosier!" Snape said testily.

"I'm sorry, sir," Dylan said, still grinning sheepishly. "I knew she wanted to try out for the team, but I never thought she'd make Seeker. She's only a second-year, after all. I thought maybe she'd make the reserve team at best."

"Dylan only gave her a few lessons, sir," Blaise said apologetically. "She really worked hard practicing on her own."

"Well, at least she'll be hard-pressed to keep up with Dylan on that old Comet," Snape muttered to himself.

"Um...well..." Blaise said, smiling nervously. "My dad let her have a used broomstick from the junk shop, but my grandfather promised that he'd buy her a new one if she actually made the team."

"Please, not a Firebolt!" Snape groaned.

"Oh no," Blaise hastily assured him. "Grandfather's new book has made him 'a nice bit of pocket change,' as he says, but nowhere near enough to buy a Firebolt. He was thinking more like a Cleansweep."

"It's too bad that Miss Zabini wasn't Sorted into Slytherin, after all," Snape sighed. "I never thought she'd show such a talent for Quidditch."

"I'm sorry, sir," Blaise apologized.

"You're not responsible for what House your sister was Sorted into, Zabini, unless you urged her to go into Gryffindor," Snape said crossly.

"Sor...I mean, yes, sir," Blaise mumbled.

Lupin chuckled and whispered, "Remember that you're his colleague now, Blaise, not his student."

"I'll always feel like a student around the Professor," Blaise whispered back, smiling ruefully.

"You know, it's only a game, Severus," Lupin said mildly. "I think you're taking this a bit too seriously."

Snape scowled at him. "It's 'only' a game in the sense that a werewolf is 'only' slightly inconvenienced by the full moon. It's a matter of House pride. Besides, I have ten Galleons riding on our first match against Gryffindor."

"Don't worry, Professor," Dylan said with a confident grin. "I won't let you down! Allegra's good, but she's no match for me. She has a lot of potential, but I've got the edge on her in experience." He winked at his foster father. "And I have a few tricks up my sleeve that I didn't teach her. The money is as good as yours, Professor!"

"That's the spirit!" Snape said, clapping him on the shoulder, and Lupin just shook his head and laughed.

*** 

Meanwhile, Aileen Pierce was planning a distraction of her own, unbeknownst to Lupin and Snape. "I was thinking that I'd like to have a shower for you, dear, since the baby is due in a couple of months," she said to Narcissa over tea one afternoon. "If you don't mind, I thought perhaps it could be a double shower since Professor Blackmore is pregnant as well."

"Why, that's very sweet of you, dear," Narcissa said. "Of course I wouldn't mind sharing a shower with the Professor. I think it's a lovely idea."

"Of course, it's a bit hard to picture Professor Blackmore as a mother," Aileen giggled.

"Well, I would have thought so, too," Narcissa laughed. "Except that she's been quite motherly towards me since the war ended, and to Draco and Harry, too, of course. She isn't as scary as we always thought she was when we were children...no, that's not quite true. She is still terrifying when she's angry, but I've found that there is a gentler side to her as well."

"Still, as much as I admire the Professor, I don't envy Sirius," Aileen said mischievously. "That must be quite a tempestuous relationship. That's all very well when one is a teenager, but it grows a bit wearisome after awhile."

"Oh, I don't know," Narcissa purred. "Tempestuousness has its place, in small doses."

"Well, I'd say that's obvious," Aileen replied, staring pointedly at Narcissa's rounded stomach. Narcissa blushed slightly, then both women burst into laughter.

"So who do you want to invite to your shower, dear?" Aileen asked in a more serious voice, picking up a quill and dipping it in a bottle of ink. "Your bridal attendants, I assume...let's see, aside from myself and Professor Blackmore, that would be Lady Selima, Delia Avery, and Gwendolyn Ames." She scribbled the names on a piece of parchment, then nibbled thoughtfully on the end of the quill. "Hmm...what about your niece, Nymphadora? I recall that she came to the wedding."

"Yes, that would be fine," Narcissa said. "I can't say that we're close, but we have dinner together from time to time with Sirius and the Professor, and she's been decent to me since the war ended." Narcissa flushed guiltily. "Even though my family had disowned Andromeda for marrying a Mudblood. She's very kind and good-natured, and not at all the type to hold a grudge."

"What about Andromeda, then?" Aileen asked hesitantly. Unlike her daughter, Andromeda was proud and stubborn, like all the Blacks, and not inclined to forgive easily. "Should I invite your sister to the shower?"

"I thought she was in America with her husband," Narcissa replied, surprised by the question. Andromeda's husband, Ted Tonks, had taken a guest teaching position at Salem a couple of years ago, tutoring select students in Metamorphmagery. According to Nymphadora, the move had been prompted by the return of the Dark Lord and Andromeda's fear of being targeted by the Death Eaters as a blood traitor. She had urged her daughter to accompany them, but Nymphadora had been stubbornly determined to remain in England and carry out her duties as an Auror and a member of the Order of the Phoenix.

"Oh, didn't you hear?" Aileen said. "They've just returned to England. I suppose they feel safe now that the Dark Lord has been defeated and all the Death Eaters have been rounded up, even the last remaining fugitive, Rabastan Lestrange. Although it's ironic that it turned out he was hiding in America after the war ended! Anyway, your sister is back, and I just thought...since you've made peace with Nymphadora, perhaps you would like to make peace with Andromeda, too?"

Narcissa bit her lower lip for a moment, her green eyes filled with anxiety and uncertainty and a touch of vulernability that made her look more like the frightened, homesick young girl Aileen had first met at Hogwarts, rather than the wife and mother she was now. "The question isn't so much whether I wish to make peace with Andromeda...it's whether Andromeda wishes to make peace with me. She was very angry when the family disowned her."

"But that was your parents' doing," Aileen argued. "You were still at Hogwarts when Andromeda ran off with Ted Tonks, after all. It isn't as if you disowned her personally."

"No, but..." Narcissa flushed. "She came to see me shortly after she eloped with Ted, and I said some pretty nasty things to her. She told me that if I wanted to be a good little pureblood daughter without a thought in my head of my own, then fine, she wouldn't ever bother me again. And we've never spoken a word to each other since that day."

"The Blacks can certainly hold a grudge, can't they?" Aileen asked, smiling wryly. "But then again, I never thought that you and Sirius would ever be on speaking terms, either, so let us hope for the best. We'll go ahead and send your sister an invitation, and let her decide whether she will come or not."

"Well...all right," Narcissa agreed, a bit doubtfully. She wasn't sure if that was really a good idea, but as usual, she deferred to Aileen's judgment. It had served her well enough in the past--it was thanks to Aileen that she was married to Lukas now, after all. It had been Aileen who had schemed to bring them together after Narcissa had been too afraid to even tell Lukas that she was pregnant with his child. Maybe she could manage to work a miracle with Andromeda, too.

"Very well, then," Aileen said briskly, adding Andromeda's name to the list. "Is there anyone else that you'd like to invite?"

"My list of friends has shrunk considerably since Lucius died," Narcissa said with an ironic smile. "Everyone that I care to invite is already on the list."

"What about the Professor, then?" Aileen asked. "Does she have any other friends that I should invite?"

"Hmm," Narcissa murmured, thinking it over. "She doesn't have many close friends, either. Perhaps you could invite Goewin Donner. They worked together in the Order of the Phoenix, and Goewin has a young daughter, so she can give the Professor a few pointers on child care." Narcissa grinned. "And perhaps give me a few reminders--it's been a long time since Draco was a baby. But I can't really think of anyone else to invite. I'd say that the Professor's closest friends are Severus and Remus."

"Well, should we invite Professor Lupin, then?" Aileen suggested.

"I don't really mind, but isn't a baby shower usually only for women?" Narcissa replied, looking puzzled.

"Yes, but isn't Lupin sort of like the wife in that couple?" Aileen asked brightly, just as Narcissa was lifting her teacup to her mouth.

Narcissa choked on her tea, coughing and gasping as droplets of tea sprayed from her mouth. "Don't say things like that when I'm drinking!" she complained, dabbing at her mouth and dress with a napkin.

"I'm serious!" Aileen protested innocently. "Lupin is kind and sensitive and good with children, and Severus...is, well...Severus. Surely you don't think that Severus is the wife?"

"Not all women are kind and sensitive and good with children," Narcissa said dryly. "Think of my sister Bellatrix. Besides, I'm not sure that it works that way. I don't think that either of them necessarily has to be 'the wife' or 'the husband'."

"Well, I don't know the proper terminology for same-sex couples, but I'm sure it amounts to the same thing, whatever they call it," Aileen said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "So shall we invite Lupin?"

"Oh, why not?" Narcissa laughed, since Aileen clearly had her mind set on the idea. It would make Professor Blackmore happy, and fortunately, Remus had a much better sense of humor than Severus, so he probably wouldn't take offense.

*** 

The next day, Snape returned to his quarters after class to find Lupin chuckling to himself as he went through the mail. "Something amusing?" Snape asked.

Lupin held up a gold-embossed card and said with a grin, "I've been invited to a baby shower for Narcissa and Branwen. Aileen Pierce is throwing it."

"Aren't those things usually only for women?" Snape asked. "Aileen is no Death Eater, but she's a pretty traditional Slytherin, so I'm surprised to see her breaking with etiquette. Then again, she did encourage Narcissa to marry a werewolf, so I suppose she isn't all that beholden to tradition." Then he frowned and asked apprehensively, "I don't have to go to this party, do I?"

"Oh, don't worry, you aren't invited, Severus," Lupin replied casually.

Snape's frown deepened slightly as he tried to decide whether he should feel offended or relieved. "Not that I really mind, but why were you invited, then?" he asked.

Lupin chuckled again. "Apparently Aileen thinks that I'm 'the wife' in this couple, so I guess that qualifies me for the baby shower."

"WHAT?!" Snape bellowed.

"Well, it doesn't actually say so in the invitation, of course, but that's what she told Narcissa, and Narcissa told Lukas, and Lukas sort of let it slip to me," Lupin replied, still chuckling.

"She thinks you're 'the wife'?!" Snape asked incredulously.

"As you said, Aileen is rather traditional, so I suppose she can't help but try to categorize us in traditional roles," Lupin said blithely.

"Honestly, Lupin, aren't you the least bit offended by that?" Snape fumed. "The nerve of that woman! I've a good mind to fail that son of hers!"

"But Damien didn't do anything," Lupin protested.

"I know that, Lupin," Snape said peevishly. "But he's here at Hogwarts and Aileen isn't, and you know that Slytherins don't play fair."

"You will not fail Damien just because you're annoyed with his mother," Lupin said sternly.

"If you're the wife, does that make me henpecked?" Snape grumbled.

"So what do you think I should get for Narcissa and Branwen?" Lupin asked cheerfully. "Stuffed animals or baby clothes? Or maybe one of those Quidditch mobiles that Draco was working on?"

"You're not actually going to the shower, are you?!" Snape exclaimed indignantly.

"Why not?" Lupin said with a grin. "I was planning to get them baby gifts anyway, so why shouldn't I join in on the celebration?"

"Because...because...you're not a 'wife'!" Snape spluttered. "If you go along with Aileen's invitation, it's like you're saying that she's right about you being 'the wife'! For Merlin's sake, does she think you prance around wearing a dress and apron when we're at home alone together?!"

Lupin snickered. "Well, that's not really my cup of tea, but if the idea of it turns you on..."

"It's not funny, Lupin!" Snape snapped. "Is your Gryffindor brain too feeble to understand when you're being insulted?"

"Sev, you're taking this whole thing much too seriously," Lupin said dismissively. "It's just a party to celebrate our friends' happiness, and I intend to go and have a good time." As Snape continued to fume, Lupin smiled mischievously and added, "Besides, you do realize that if I'm not the wife, that would make you the wife, my dear? Or at least, if I decline the invitation, Aileen will assume that you must be the wife, since I'm not. She means well, but as you pointed out, she does think in rather narrow terms..." Snape just stared at him, a look of horror slowly spreading across his face. "Of course," Lupin continued sweetly, "if you really want to go to the shower, I don't mind being 'the husband'..."

"Oh, go to the bloody shower, already!" Snape growled, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "Just leave me out of it! And keep Aileen Pierce away from me, or I might be tempted to turn her into a toad!"

Lupin laughed and flung his arms around Snape. "I love you, Severus," he said affectionately.

"Henpecked, that's what I am," Snape muttered to himself, then heaved a sigh of resignation and returned the embrace.

*** 

Meanwhile, the Macnair twins had not been idle, and were busy planning their own distraction for Snape, this one much less pleasant than a baby shower. Warren Macnair knocked on a door in a shabby apartment building in France, and it opened a crack as a handsome blond man peered out through it cautiously and said, "Yes?"

"Are you Sebastien Delauney, grandson of the former courtesan Philomela Delauney?" Warren asked.

"That depends on who's asking," the blond man replied warily.

Warren smiled and pulled a small velvet pouch out of his pocket. "Someone who has a business proposition to make," he said. "One that could be very profitable for you." He shook the pouch invitingly, and it made a soft jingling sound as the coins in it clinked against each other. "I'll pay you twenty-five Galleons just to hear me out, and the money will be yours to keep whether you agree to my proposition or not."

The blond man hesitated for a second, then smiled and swung the door open wider. "Very well, come in and I'll hear you out."


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Greyback seeks out another victim; Lupin goes to the baby shower. Meanwhile, tension builds to the breaking point in Ash's and Tsubasa's relationship.

While Warren was gone, Imogen was left to deal with an irritable Greyback. "I'm bored," he growled sullenly, in a tone of voice that might have sounded whiny if it hadn't been so deep and gravelly. "You promised me blood!" he complained as he paced back and forth in the kitchen of the safe house, brandishing the well-gnawed bone of a joint of beef he had just finished eating. "When can I kill Alden Madley?"

"Not until Warren gets back," Imogen replied, keeping her voice level with a great deal of effort. She was sorely tempted to toss that bone across the room and order Greyback to fetch it, but the werewolf didn't have much of a sense of humor and it wasn't wise to provoke him, the Unbreakable Vow notwithstanding. He was a beast at heart, and if pushed too far, his animal instincts might override his common sense.

"I need Warren to monitor Madley's whereabouts so that we can plan the best time for you to attack him," Imogen continued. "Because of my job at the museum, my movements are watched more closely than Warren's. Furthermore, we want Snape to be distracted by the rival heir before you carry out the second murder. It shouldn't be much longer now; Warren's last message said that he had tracked down a potential heir in France."

"Who knows how long it will take your brother to track down the heir, persuade him to go along with your plan, come back to England, and file the lawsuit?" Greyback demanded impatiently. "I have held up my end of the Vow--now hold up yours! You and your brother promised me prey to hunt!"

They hadn't set a time limit on that promise, but Imogen thought that it would probably be better to humor Greyback this time. She didn't want him to get so wound up that he forgot the Vow and lost control of himself, and besides, it wouldn't hurt to stir up a little fear in the wizarding world.

"Very well," Imogen said. "I have a few potential targets in mind--blood traitors, people who support Dumbledore's policies. Just be careful not to get caught."

"I'm not some inexperienced young cub, to get caught by the Ministry's dogs," Greyback said with an arrogant grin and dropped into a chair, his irritation vanishing now that he'd gotten what he wanted. "I didn't let anyone catch me at Madley's farm, did I? So who is my target to be?"

"Hmm," Imogen said, going over the possible victims in her mind. Some she thought might be too much for Greyback to handle on his own, in spite of his confidence, and others lived and worked in crowded areas that would have too many possible witnesses. "Ah, I have it! A woman who supports Arthur Weasley, pure of blood, but too insignificant for her home or person to be guarded. But the death of an innocent housewife and mother will surely cause a public outcry, and she has indirect ties to the werewolf pack."

"Fine," Greyback growled impatiently. "Just tell me her name and where I can find her."

*** 

The following evening, Greyback was loitering on a dark side street near the cafe where his target, a Gobstones aficionado, attended weekly club meetings. He heard her laugh and say goodbye to her companions, then walk down the street towards him. According to the information Imogen had given him, his target usually stopped by a nearby bakery to pick up treats for her family on the way home. In the old days, no one with any common sense would dare to walk home alone at night, but people felt safe in these postwar days, now that the Dark Lord was dead. Greyback felt like he was doing a public service for the wizarding world, teaching these fat, lazy sheep not to be so complacent.

His target walked towards him, a pretty blonde woman who did indeed look as plump and harmless as a sheep. Greyback sighed in disappointment; he would have preferred more challenging prey, but this would do for now. And then he had an idea to make the proceedings more interesting...

He grabbed her arm and pulled her into the alley as she walked by, clamping a hand over her mouth before she had time to scream. As she struggled, he whispered into her ear, "Don't scream or fight me. If you do, I'll let you go, but I'll take your daughter in your place." The woman went absolutely still and stared up at him with fearstruck eyes. He gave her a fierce, wolfish grin and said, "That's right. I know where she works. I can get to her at any time."

It was all a bluff; he did know where the daughter worked, but it was too public a place for him to easily snatch her from. However, as he had gambled, the mother believed him. He felt an involuntary shudder of horror run through her body, but she slumped in his arms, unresisting. So, she was the noble type--not physically strong, perhaps, but strong of spirit. Greyback was a little impressed; he had known many men and women who would gladly have traded their firstborns to save their own skins. This hunt might be more enjoyable than he had thought.

He took the risk of lifting his hand slightly from the woman's mouth, and she whispered in a voice that quavered only slightly, "Do whatever you wish with me, but I beg of you, do not harm my daughter."

"Then we have a bargain," Greyback said, and Apparated away with his victim.

Later, as she was screaming in pain, Greyback wondered if she regretted making that bargain. He taunted her with that question, but by that point, she was too far gone to give him any reply but a scream. However, just before she died, she breathed one last word: her daughter's name, whispered as reverently as a prayer.

*** 

Aric and Takeshi had the day off from St. Mungo's, so they spent the morning working at the clinic, then headed over to the Sakura to have lunch and visit with Takeshi's parents. But to their alarm, when they arrived at the restaurant, there was a sign adorned with a black ribbon hanging on the door that read: "Closed due to a death in the family."

Takeshi pounded frantically on the door and shouted, "Okaasan? Otoosan? It's me, Takeshi!"

His father Isamu opened the door, looking worried and distracted. "Ah, Takeshi, Aric, come on in. We've closed the restaurant, but I can fix some lunch for you."

"Never mind that!" Takeshi said. "I saw the sign on the door! Is Okaasan--?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you worry," Isamu apologized. "Your mother is fine, and so is Tsubasa, and everyone else in the family. It's Hannah's mother that died." He gestured at a table across the room where Hannah Abbott was sitting, sobbing brokenheartedly while her friend Ernie Macmillan and Takeshi's mother Haruko tried to comfort her.

"What happened?" Aric asked. "Was Mrs. Abbott ill? I've never seen her at St. Mungo's." He worked in Creature-Induced Injuries, so a person suffering from an illness wouldn't be a patient in his ward, but still, if the illness was that serious, she should have spent enough time at the hospital for him to have seen her passing by in the halls. He frowned as an ominous suspicion began to form in his mind...

"Hannah's mother was murdered," Isamu whispered, confirming Aric's suspicion. "She went out last night to her weekly Gobstones club meeting as usual, but never came home. Both Hannah and Mr. Abbott were working last night, so they didn't know she was missing until they got home and realized she wasn't there. Her body was found this morning in Knockturn Alley, and...I don't know all the details, but one of the Aurors said it looked like she'd been savaged by a beast."

"A werewolf?" Takeshi whispered in a voice filled with dread.

His father shrugged. "Well, it's not the full moon, but I imagine they've called in Healer Smethwyck to examine the body. I thought you might have gone with him, but I forgot it was your day off."

"This sounds like a set-up," Aric said suspiciously. "If someone's out to get the werewolves, could they have targeted Mrs. Abbott because Hannah works here?"

"But if that's the case," Takeshi argued, "I would expect them to attack someone more directly connected to the pack, like myself or..." He suddenly turned pale. "...my family."

Aric growled menacingly at the thought of someone harming his mate or extended family, and Isamu said calmly, "Well, let's not jump to conclusions. Mr. Abbott is at the Ministry talking to the Aurors, and hopefully when he gets back, we'll have a better idea of what happened. But in the meantime, I'll put additional wards on the restaurant, and we should all be careful until these murders are solved. I think it would be wise to Apparate or Floo to and from home and work, especially at night."

Aric and Takeshi nodded in agreement, then went over to give their condolences to Hannah. "I'm sorry about your mother," Aric said awkwardly. He didn't know the Hufflepuff girl very well, and they hadn't been friends at Hogwarts, but still, he felt badly for her. Even though he was estranged from his own family, he knew that he'd be devastated if one of his parents died.

"I'm very sorry for your loss, Hannah," Takeshi murmured, more formally.

"Th-thank you," Hannah stammered between sobs. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose on a handkerchief that Ernie offered, then said to Takeshi's mother, "I-I'll be all right, Lady Haruko. I feel bad that you're closing the restaurant because of me. You should go ahead and open; it's almost time for the lunch rush."

"Nonsense, dear," Haruko said gently. "You're like part of the family now; I would do the same for any of the other workers. It won't hurt to close for one day, and our regular customers will understand."

"I can work," Hannah said stubbornly, although her eyes were red and her face tear-stained. "It's better than sitting around feeling miserable, anyway."

"But the customers look forward to seeing your cheerful, smiling face," Haruko said with a gentle, teasing smile. "It will make them sad to see you so sad. Besides, your father needs you more than the customers do. You should take as much time off as you need, Hannah. But don't forget that we'll be here for you whenever you need us, and you and your father can stop by anytime you want a hot meal."

Kian, the young werewolf who worked in the kitchen, set down a steaming bowl and cup in front of Hannah. "Some hot soup and warm sake," he said kindly. "Master Isamu says it will make you feel better. You haven't eaten all morning, have you? The Master says you need to keep your strength up."

Hannah obediently drank a few spoonfuls of soup and a gulp of the sake, which at least put some color into her pale cheeks. Then she began to cry again, wailing, "I just don't understand why anyone would want to hurt my mother! She's never done anything to anyone! And it's not like she's important--I mean, of course she's important to me and my dad, but it's not like she's a Death Eater or a member of the Order! There's no reason for anyone to hate her."

Haruko exchanged a look over Hannah's head with Takeshi and Aric; it seemed that she had her suspicions, too. But all she said was, "Well, perhaps she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Just then, Mr. Abbott walked through the door, his eyes as red as Hannah's, and his face weary and drawn.

"Daddy!" Hannah cried, jumping to her feet, and she ran over and embraced her father. Everyone else in the restaurant waited patiently while father and daughter comforted each other--well, almost everyone. Aric was eager to learn more about the murder and whether it was related to the murder of Rosalind Madley, but he tried to wait quietly along with everyone else, fighting the urge to tap his foot on the floor with impatience. His foot did twitch once, but he forced it to remain still when Takeshi gave him a sidelong glance of warning out of the corner of his eye.

Fortunately for Aric, he didn't need to interrupt the Abbotts' grieving, because Hannah pulled back slightly and asked, "Daddy, what happened?!"

"I don't know, sweetheart," Mr. Abbott replied wearily. "The Aurors can't even seem to agree on whether the killer was human or not."

"What do you mean, sir?" Aric asked, with a feeling of foreboding.

Mr. Abbott gave Aric a puzzled look, until Hannah explained, "This is Aric Dietrich, Daddy. He was a yearmate at Hogwarts, and he's, um, friends with the Kimuras' son."

Fortunately, Mr. Abbott was too distracted by his grief to notice the "um," and merely gave Aric a polite nod. "Well, one of the Aurors wanted to know if it might be a werewolf attack like that other case, and the Healer said that the bites and scratches on..." His voice faltered and cracked. "...on my wife's body weren't made by a wolf, but they weren't exactly like a normal human's, either. He said the killer had incredible strength..."

"Like a werewolf in human form?" Takeshi asked quietly.

Mr. Abbott nodded. "That's what that Auror Dawlish thinks. He thinks that may be the reason for the murder...because Hannah works here."

"You think that Mummy was killed because of me?!" Hannah cried, aghast.

"Of course it's not your fault, dear," Mr. Abbott quickly assured her, looking a bit guilty. "But Mr. Dawlish says that there is a connection with werewolves in both cases--"

Aric bristled, but before he could say anything, Hannah said hotly, "That's a load of rubbish! Dawlish has been out to get the werewolves ever since he was investigating those so-called werewolf attacks last year that weren't caused by werewolves at all, but his own partner, that slimy git Williamson! He was made to look bad, so he holds a grudge against the werewolves! Besides, it makes no sense at all that a werewolf would attack Mum because I work here! Lady Haruko and Master Isamu are their friends!"

"Well, I don't really know why," Mr. Abbott said with a helpless shrug. "The other Aurors, including your friend Harry Potter, were arguing the same point with Dawlish when I left. But you can't deny that there is some sort of connection; it's too much of a coincidence that both your mother and Mrs. Madley had some sort of tie to the werewolves. Maybe the killer isn't a werewolf, but someone who hates them and is trying to kill their families and allies. Either way, it's too dangerous for you to keep working here, Hannah."

"What?!" Hannah shouted indignantly. "I am not quitting my job because that idiot Dawlish has been feeding you a pack of lies!"

"Hannah is very dear to us," Haruko said quietly. "We would never let harm come to her while she is in our care."

"It's nothing personal," Mr. Abbott said. "I know that Hannah loves working here and that you've been good to her. But I've already lost my wife--I can't risk losing my daughter!"

"I won't run and hide while my friends are being accused of murder!" Hannah shouted. Aric gave her a startled look, and she smiled slightly at him in spite of her anger. "I don't know Ash very well, but I do know Kian and Kai, and if they say he isn't a killer, then that's good enough for me!"

"It's easy to take the moral high ground when your life isn't at risk," her father argued. "But this is serious, Hannah--"

"I am serious, Dad," Hannah interrupted in a quiet but intense voice. "When Cedric died--no, when Cedric was killed, Professor Dumbledore told us that a time would come when we would have to choose between what is easy and what is right. Everyone wanted to pretend that You-Know-Who hadn't returned back then, because that was the easy choice, but it wasn't the right one. If everyone had taken the easy way out, then the Death Eaters would have won the war and we'd all be dead now. I won't do what's easy if it isn't right."

"I can't bear to lose you as well, Hannah!" Mr. Abbott shouted desperately. "Maybe I'm a coward, but I don't care! I won't let you work here while the killer is at large!"

"I'm an adult now!" Hannah snapped. "You can't stop me!"

"Let us not speak of resigning right now," Haruko interrupted, in her gentle and soothing voice. "But I think it would be a good idea for you to take some time off, Hannah."

"But--" Hannah protested.

"Not because you're afraid," Haruko said. "But because you and your father need time to mourn your mother." She enfolded Hannah in a motherly embrace and whispered in a voice soft enough that only a werewolf could overhear, "I'm very proud of you, Hannah, and I think that your father will be too, eventually. But right now he's frightened and devastated by the loss of his lifemate. If he can't be strong right now, then you must be strong for him, Hannah." Then she released Hannah and said in a normal voice, "Besides, hopefully the Aurors will catch the culprit quickly, and this whole argument will be a moot point."

"I hope so," Mr. Abbott said in a conciliatory but not very hopeful voice.

Hannah walked over to her father and gently took him by the hand. Her face was filled with resolve, and somehow her inner strength made her father look fragile by comparison. "Come on, Dad," she said. "Let's go home." He nodded and smiled with relief.

"Please allow me to come with you and set some protective wards on your home," Isamu offered. "It would put my mind at ease to know that Hannah will be safe."

"Protective wards are my father's specialty," Takeshi said with a smile. "Aside from cooking, of course."

"Ah...thank you very much," Mr. Abbott said, looking both grateful and abashed. "That is most gracious of you."

Before they departed, Hannah gave Haruko a quick hug and whispered, "I won't quit, no matter what!"

After the three of them left, Takeshi and Aric decided to try to find out more details about the murder from Smethwyck. When they contacted the hospital, they were told that he was still consulting with the Aurors, so they headed over to the Ministry.

Fortunately, when they arrived at the Aurors' office, Dawlish wasn't there, so they were able to avoid a confrontation. The purple-haired Auror was there, along with Potter, and they were deep in discussion with Smethwyck, Snape, and Lupin.

"Hello, Takeshi," the purple-haired woman said with a friendly smile. "Come to help us out on the case? I'll admit, we can use all the help we can get."

"Aric, you remember Tonks, don't you?" Takeshi asked.

"Uh, yeah, sure," Aric said, shaking hands politely with the Auror. He'd been interviewed by Tonks and her bald-headed partner after Williamson had nearly killed him, but as he'd been in a hospital bed at the time, recovering from a near-fatal curse and a werewolf bite, he hadn't had much chance or inclination to get to know her very well.

"Thank you for coming in," Smethwyck said. "I was going to call you, Mr. Kimura, but I didn't want to bother you on your day off."

"We just heard about what happened from Hannah and my parents," Takeshi explained. 

"Ah, right," Tonks said. "Your folks run the restaurant where Mrs. Abbott's daughter works. How much do you know?"

"Not much," Takeshi replied. "Just that Dawlish is convinced the murderer is a werewolf--presumably Ash." He turned to Smethwyck. "But I assume you have your doubts, sir?"

The Healer sighed wearily. "The victim was beaten, bitten, and scratched. The bite wounds were made by teeth much blunter than a wolf's, but a little sharper than your average human's. Likewise with the scratches; they're too shallow to be made by a werewolf's claws, but deeper than human fingernails would normally cut. And whoever inflicted the wounds had very great strength--strong enough to tear open the victim's throat, even with more-or-less human teeth. That was the fatal blow, although by that time it might almost have been a mercy, since she must have been in great pain for a long time before she died."

"Sounds an awful lot like a werewolf in human form," Aric said reluctantly.

"Well, there are other explanations--a normal human using a Strengthening Solution, for example," Smethwyck replied. "And sometimes a normal person can perform great feats of strength without magical aid if they are under emotional duress, such as extreme fear or anger. But yes, the most obvious answer would be that the killer is a werewolf, especially in light of the fact that both Mrs. Madley and Mrs. Abbott were killed in a similar manner."

"That's what Dawlish thinks," Potter said disgustedly. "He thinks that Ash killed Hannah's mother, even though he's never even met her and has no reason to hate her. Ash even has an alibi--he was at home with the pack when the murder took place. But because all the witnesses are werewolves, Dawlish doesn't believe him."

Tonks sighed. "That's why Kingsley's not here. Dawlish decided to interrogate the other werewolves, and Kingsley went along to try to keep things from getting out of hand."

"Things are already beginning to get out of hand, and I don't mean just with Dawlish," Takeshi said gravely, then explained how Hannah's father wanted her to quit her job at the Sakura.

"So the fear and paranoia are already starting," Lupin said, sounding worried, sad, and a little resigned. "Again."

"Just like last year," Potter said grimly.

"And the last two wars," Snape added, sounding cynical and weary. "Human nature never changes, Potter."

"Your mother was pretty nice, trying to smooth things over between Hannah and her dad," Aric told Takeshi, although he wasn't sure if he entirely approved of Haruko's kindness in this case. 

He tried to keep his voice neutral, but they'd been together long enough for Takeshi to understand what he really meant. "She just doesn't want Hannah and her father to be at odds during a time such as this, when they need each other the most. Besides, my mother is a parent, too, and she knows what it's like to want to protect your children, even if she doesn't agree with Mr. Abbott. And I'm sure that my parents will support Hannah if she still wants to come back to work after she and her father have had some time to mourn and think things over."

"But this is a bad sign," Tonks said anxiously. "It makes me wonder if this is what the killer wants, to stir up fear and prejudice against werewolves, and if that's the case..."

Potter's eyes suddenly filled with comprehension and horror. "Then there will be more murders!"

"A serial killer loose in the wizarding world?" Takeshi asked, turning pale.

"Or another sort of Death Eater," Snape said, his brow creasing deeply in a frown. "One that hates werewolves instead of Muggle-borns."

"Well, we don't know that for sure," Tonks said. "We're looking into the possibility that the killer might have had a grudge against both women, but so far we haven't found any connections between Mrs. Madley and Mrs. Abbott other than a tenuous connection to the werewolf pack."

"The two of them don't really travel in the same social circles," Snape said, still frowning.

"Well, we still need to take a closer look into Mrs. Abbott's background, but yes, I am afraid that the murders are part of a much bigger plot," Tonks sighed. 

"Haven't you been able to track down any leads with the information my mother and I have given you?" Snape asked, a bit waspishly.

Potter glared at the Potions Master. "There was a LOT of information to sift through in those school records, Professor! Kingsley interviewed Mrs. Madley's classmates, but none of them could tell him anything useful."

"Yes, yes," Snape said impatiently, "but what about the sanatoriums?"

"The sanatoriums you told us about have either closed down or upgraded to legal standards," Tonks replied. "We were able to get the location of two illicit sanatoriums through your mother's contact--" She suddenly clapped a hand over her mouth and smiled sheepishly at Takeshi and Aric. "Er, please don't tell anyone that; it's supposed to be a secret." 

They both nodded in agreement, and Tonks continued, "We were able to close down one illegal site, but the people who run it said that they have no missing werewolves, and that was confirmed with Truth Potion. The staff of the second sanatorium had gotten wind of the first raid and fled before we could arrest them, but they left all their patients behind. Unfortunately, we've had a hard time getting information out of the patients, since most of them aren't in their right minds. But from the records we could find in the office, there don't seem to be any patients missing." She sighed again. "I'm glad that we shut down those places, but we still aren't any closer to finding the killer."

"These facilities you shut down were both in Britain?" Snape asked.

Tonks looked startled. "There are others outside of Britain?"

"Of course there are, Miss Tonks!" Snape said impatiently, in the tone of voice he normally used on slow-witted student--or on Gryffindors in general. "Do you think that British wizards are the only ones who have inconvenient relatives they wish to be rid of?"

"Well of course there must be sanatoriums in other countries," Tonks mumbled, blushing like a chastened student. "It just never occurred to me to look outside of Britain for our assassin."

"Be nice, Severus," Lupin whispered, and Snape scowled at him.

"Well, it is a somewhat remote possibility," Snape conceded grudgingly. "But it should not be ruled out entirely."

"We'll look into it," Tonks sighed, running her hand through her spiky purple hair. "I don't suppose...?"

"No, I don't know the exact locations of any sanatoriums outside of Britain," Snape replied. "But I can put you in touch with a colleague at Durmstrang who might." Tonks gave him another startled look--she seemed to be surprised that he had offered his help so readily--and the Potions Master smiled wryly. "Believe it or not, Miss Tonks, I also wish to see the killer caught quickly." His gaze shifted over towards Lupin for a moment, and Aric understood what he meant; Lupin would be affected by any renewed prejudice and hostility against werewolves, even if he had nothing to do with the crimes.

"Well, thank you, Severus," Tonks said gratefully, then turned to Aric and Takeshi. "And thank you for stopping by."

"I'm sorry we couldn't be of more help," Takeshi said apologetically. 

"It's okay," Tonks said. "Just let us know if you hear of anything that might be helpful from your patients at the clinic." She hesitated, perhaps remembering his earlier argument with Shacklebolt, and added tactfully, "I'm sure they'd be more comfortable talking to you than an Auror, so you might be able to learn more from them than we would."

"Of course we'll let you know if we hear anything," Takeshi promised.

As they were turning to leave, Tonks said to Lupin, "I really hope that I'll be able to make the baby shower, Remus, but with the way that this investigation is going..."

"You really should come if it's at all possible," Lupin urged. "Isn't your mother going to be there?"

Tonks nodded. "Hopefully I can manage to get away from work for an hour or two. I'd like to see Mum and Narcissa make up." Her mouth quirked in an ironic, slightly lopsided smile. "And if things don't go well, then I'd like to make sure that they don't start throwing hexes at each other. My mum's got quite a temper."

"It must be a Black trait," Lupin said with a smile.

"Baby shower?" Takeshi asked.

"Aileen Pierce is throwing a baby shower for Narcissa and Branwen this weekend," Lupin explained. "Tonks and I are both invited."

"Ah, right, Narcissa mentioned something about it the other day at dinner," Aric said. "But aren't baby showers usually only for women?"

Lupin laughed out loud, and Snape groaned, "Don't even ask, Dietrich!"

*** 

Lupin was pleased to see that Tonks did show up for the baby shower, after all, arriving with her mother, Andromeda, a stately and rather stern-looking woman who had black hair and gray eyes like her cousin Sirius. The resemblance caused Lupin to wonder briefly about Narcissa's blonde hair--she seemed to be the only fair one in the Black family--and whether it might be due to her being born on the wrong side of the blanket, so to speak.

But surely if there'd been any hint of illegitimacy, the proud and ruthless Blacks would have disowned her and burned her name off the family tree, so Lupin supposed it must just be coincidence. And according to Severus and Sirius, Narcissa had been spoiled and cosseted by both of her parents, so if there actually was something questionable in her bloodline, it seemed that no one had ever suspected. 

Lupin smiled; bloodline mattered little to an outcast werewolf like himself, and it no longer mattered as much as it had to Narcissa, who had taken a werewolf husband. So he told himself to let sleeping dogs lie, and chuckled silently at his own analogy.

"Andromeda," Narcissa said, in a slightly stiff and nervous voice.

"Narcissa," Andromeda replied, handing her sister a present wrapped in silver paper. The expression on her face was not exactly hostile, but cool and unsmiling.

As if to make up for her mother's coolness, Tonks gave her aunt a hug and said with slightly forced exuberance, "Congratulations, Narcissa! Here's something for little Cedric!"

"Ah...thank you, Nymphadora," Narcissa said, accepting the gift graciously, although she looked a little flustered by Tonks's unusually demonstrative greeting. 

"And you too, Branwen!" Tonks said, giving the other expectant mother a hug as well. Branwen's raven familiar Bane croaked out a protest as he was nearly dislodged from his perch on his mistress's shoulder.

"Thank you, Tonks," Branwen said, returning the embrace with a laugh, while Bane continued to squawk grumpily. "It's good to see you, Andromeda." 

"Likewise, Professor," Andromeda said politely, handing her a package identical to Narcissa's.

"Hello, Andromeda," Lupin said cheerfully. "Sirius sends his regards." He hadn't known her very well, but he had met her a few times in the past, since she had remained friendly with Sirius after the rest of the family disowned them both, and she had always treated him politely. Of course, that was before his lycanthropy had been revealed.

She raised an eyebrow, looking startled to see him here, but she just nodded at him politely, with a little less coolness than she had shown her sister, and said, "Hello, Remus. It's nice to see you again."

Meanwhile, Lady Selima, who had already paid her respects to the guests of honor, watched the Black sisters' interactions with a look of cool interest, no doubt filing away her impressions in her vast store of information, on the off-chance that it might become useful someday. Lupin had to admire her expertise at scheming and manipulation, even if he didn't entirely approve of it.

The other guests arrived shortly after Andromeda and Tonks, and greeted everyone cheerfully. Delia and Goewin were probably aware of the estrangement between Andromeda and Narcissa, but politely pretended that they weren't. Gwendolyn, Lukas's young aunt, who didn't associate much with the Slytherin elite, seemed genuinely oblivious, and was bubbling over with happiness and excitement at the thought of Cedric Drake's birth.

She gave Narcissa a hug and a kiss, and said, "I can hardly wait to see my nephew born--I think I'm almost as excited as you, Narcissa!" Then she laughed and added, "My great-nephew, I mean. Oh dear, that makes me feel old!"

Gwendolyn's goodwill seemed to set Narcissa at ease, because she relaxed, looking less nervous, and said gaily, "Nonsense, dear. You're younger than I am, and I absolutely refuse to think of myself as old! I promise, Cedric shall always call you 'Aunt Gwen,' not 'Great-Aunt'!"

Their hostess, Aileen Pierce, looked relieved that the party was starting off, if not exactly smoothly, at least without any hexes or sharp words being exchanged. She very quickly and efficiently gathered the gifts together and placed them on a table, then ushered everyone into their seats around the dining table.

The table was set with the makings of a very fine tea, similar to the kinds of things that Selima usually served at Snape Manor: dainty crustless sandwiches cut into small triangles, scones topped with Devonshire cream, delicious-looking little teacakes dusted with powdered sugar or decorated with pastel icing and silver non-pareils, and of course a pot of tea, along with plenty of cream, lemon slices, and sugar cubes to flavor according to one's tastes. However, despite the dainty appearance of the food, Aileen had prepared a generous amount of it--more than enough to feed the appetites of two pregnant women, not to mention a hungry werewolf.

The party favors made it clear that this was a baby shower rather than a regular tea, though. Beside each plate there was a little cradle-shaped basket, cunningly folded out of origami paper and filled with sweets, and there was a centerpiece shaped like a tiered cake made out of folded diapers and towels. A few strategically placed silver diaper pins shaped like snakes held the "cake" together, and Lupin had to smile; only a Slytherin would use snake-shaped diaper pins.

They made harmless small talk over tea, with Aileen steering the conversation towards safe topics, such as how Gwendolyn's son Tristan was doing at Hogwarts, or how cute and clever Goewin's baby Ariana was. It was the sort of thing that would have bored Severus out of his mind, but after living under the shadow of war for so many years, Lupin found it comforting to be able to indulge in some meaningless, friendly chitchat instead of Order strategy sessions.

Something brushed against Lupin's leg under the table, causing him to jump slightly. Severus wasn't present, and he doubted that any of the women would be playing footsie with him--not that Severus was the type to play footsie, anyway, although Lupin sometimes enjoyed teasing him during mealtimes in the Great Hall. Curious, he looked down to see a calico cat staring up at him hopefully.

"I guess you don't mind that I'm a canine," he chuckled, and fed the cat a bit of ham from one of his sandwiches. 

"If you feed one, then they'll all be begging for handouts, Professor," Aileen cautioned, and sure enough, several other cats suddenly appeared, mewing plaintively. "And I've already fed them, even though they'll try to convince you that they're starving! Shoo!"

She chased the cats out of the room, and Andromeda said, looking a little bemused, "You have a great many familiars, Aileen."

"Oh, they're not familiars," Aileen laughed. "Just pets...and sometimes pests."

"Aileen is too softhearted to turn away a stray at her door," Narcissa said, smiling fondly at her friend.

"Hmm," was all Andromeda said, but there was a thoughtful look on her face. Perhaps she thought that it was unusual for a Slytherin to be softhearted, or perhaps she was wondering if Narcissa was one of Aileen's "strays". Out of all Narcissa's pureblood friends, Aileen was the only one who had not abandoned her after the Malfoys' fall from glory after the war ended.

While Andromeda was pondering, Lupin picked up the thread of small talk by offering some speculation about the upcoming school Quidditch season. "Severus thinks that Slytherin has a strong team this year, and he's confident that he'll win his annual bet with Professor McGonagall. Allegra Zabini appears to be a promising young Seeker for Gryffindor, though."

"Ah yes, Blaise's little sister," Aileen murmured. "How odd, that a Zabini should become a Gryffindor."

"There's a black sheep in every family," Andromeda said dryly, with a small smile that was slightly bitter.

"Sirius used to say the same thing," Lupin said with a smile, trying to lighten the mood, but Andromeda's smile remained humorless.

"Mum, behave yourself," Tonks whispered nervously.

Aileen looked a little dismayed that the small talk had veered off the "safe" course, but she recovered quickly and changed the subject, saying brightly, "Well then, why don't we have Narcissa and Professor Blackmore open their presents?"

Everyone was nearly finished eating by this point, anyway, so they pushed aside their plates and Aileen brought over the presents. Lupin snatched one last teacake off a tray and munched on it while Narcissa and Branwen opened their gifts.

Selima gave them baby clothes made out of fine silk--green with silver embroidery for Narcissa, and black and silver for Branwen--that looked beautiful but seemed rather impractical to Lupin, considering that babies tended to drool and spit up on their clothing quite a bit. Selima must have noticed the skeptical expression on his face, because she leaned over and whispered, a bit impatiently, "They are spelled to be easily washable, of course."

She sounded like Severus lecturing one of his denser pupils, and Lupin couldn't help but smile. "Of course," he agreed amiably. "I should have guessed."

Aileen also gave them baby clothing, although made of more practical cotton and flannel rather than silk--little shirts and bibs and pajama sets in shades of green and silver for Narcissa, and blue and black for Branwen. That made Lupin wonder whether it was a custom for Slytherin purebloods to clothe their children in House colors, as if priming them for entry into Slytherin starting from the time they were in the cradle. 

That conjured up an image in Lupin's mind of a baby Severus dressed in green silk outfits embroidered with a serpent crest, and he thought that perhaps he would ask Selima if she had any baby pictures of Severus the next time they visited Snape Manor. Of course, he'd probably have to ask her when Severus wasn't around, unless he wanted to risk being turned into a toad, or at least endure a lot of shouting and complaining. Severus tended to be a little touchy about things like that, but Lupin supposed that he was probably worried that cute baby pictures might undermine his image as the dreaded Potions Master. Lupin grinned, becoming even more determined to see those baby pictures; he was sure that Severus had been an adorable baby.

Gwendolyn gave them cuddly teddy bears, and Goewin gave them bottles of colic tonic and teething salve, saying with a grin, "They're not as cuddly as Gwendolyn's presents, but they're a lifesaver when you're dealing with a screaming baby!"

Delia gave them music boxes that played soothing lullabies. "She probably doesn't remember now, but when Serafina was fussy, I would sing to calm her down," Delia said with a nostalgic smile.

"Music soothes the savage beast--or baby," Lupin joked.

"Oh, babies can be little beasts at times!" Aileen laughed. "Especially when they're screaming to be fed at two in the morning!"

The mothers in the group laughed ruefully, and Lupin said, "Maybe I should be grateful that Dylan and Theodore came to us as teenagers!"

"Oh, teenagers come with a completely different set of problems, as I'm sure you know, Professor Lupin," Aileen said, rolling her eyes. "But Dylan and Theodore are good boys, and even Damien hasn't given us too much trouble."

Lupin's gifts were opened next. He had given Narcissa a plush toy dragon, in honor of Cedric Drake's middle name, and a plush black bird to Branwen. It looked a bit like Bane, except that the toy bird's beak and feet were yellow instead of black, and it was a good deal more cuddly and friendly-looking than the irritable Bane.

"It's actually a stuffed crow," Lupin said apologetically. "It was the closest I could get to a raven. I did consider getting you a stuffed bunny, but I thought that Bane might be offended by that." Bane gave Lupin an evil glare, proving that he hadn't forgotten about the incident where a combination of hexes cast by a feuding Harry, Ron, and Draco had accidentally transfigured him into a bunny. "Sorry, Bane," Lupin said, doing his best to sound contrite when he really wanted to laugh. The raven looked mollified, then turned to examine the stuffed toy, gazing at it closely with his beady eyes, then giving it a tentative poke with his beak.

"That's for the baby, not for you," Branwen said firmly, pulling the toy bird out of his reach, and Bane hunched down on her shoulder sulkily.

Lupin chuckled and scratched the raven gently on his head. "I'll buy you another one if you like, Bane, so that you won't have to share it with the baby."

There were just two sets of presents left, Andromeda's and Tonks's. Andromeda gave both expectant mothers identical silver rattles with clear crystal windows that were set into the bulb portion of the rattle to show off the tiny semiprecious gemstones inside. No one other than Lupin seemed to find this odd, so he supposed it must be a common sort of toy for the children of the pureblood elite. He smiled and shook his head slightly, wondering if he would find solid gold toys encrusted with gems in the Snape Manor attic.

As for Tonks, she had purchased the toy wolf cubs made by Lupin's inventor friend Cassidy Sinclair--a brown cub for Narcissa, and a black cub for Branwen. "Since your baby is both a Black and a Blackmore," Tonks said with a grin and a wink.

"I'm sure the baby will love it," Branwen laughed.

"The pack children love these things, too," Narcissa said with a smile, tapping the toy wolf on its nose, causing it to bark and wag its tail. "Although Lukas finds them annoying."

"I seem to recall," Andromeda said coolly, "that you once told me that you would have nothing to do with me if I intended to bear mongrel children to my Mudblood husband. It's a little ironic given the current circumstances, don't you think, sister dear?"

Narcissa flushed, and Tonks hissed, "Mum! You promised to behave!"

"You stay out of this, Nymphadora!" Andromeda snapped. "You're the one that my sisters and parents referred to as a mongrel, after all!"

"I know that!" Tonks retorted. "But do you intend to hold a grudge for the rest of your life, and even after death, like that horrible painting of Sirius's mother? Narcissa's changed, and she's trying to make peace with you, so you could at least meet her halfway."

"Has she tried to make peace?" Andromeda demanded. "She has oh so graciously deigned to invite us to her baby shower--now that she's a blood traitor herself, married to a werewolf and bearing his child. But she has yet to apologize to me for the things that she said when I married your father--and I assure you that 'blood traitor' and 'mongrel' were the least of the insults that she threw in my face. Are you truly sorry, Narcissa, or are you only willing to associate with us because no one else will have you now that you are disgraced?"

"For Merlin's sake, Andromeda!" Aileen snapped. "Narcissa was only a child when you married Ted! She was only repeating the things that her family--your family--had taught her. How long are you going to hold a few childish insults, spoken in ignorance and the heat of the moment, against her?"

"But she has not been a child for a very long time," Andromeda replied, in a soft but unforgiving voice. "She grew up, and she supported her husband and his fellow Death Eaters while they hunted down and killed people with Muggle blood--people like my husband and daughter. It was only a year or so ago that she renounced them." 

"But renounce them she did, eventually," Selima said, her black eyes fixing on Andromeda in a cool stare. Lupin could almost feel the temperature in the room drop by several degrees; no one did "cool" as well as Lady Selima. "And by the way, I resent the implication that Narcissa keeps company only with the dregs of society. I assure you that the Snape family's wealth and status are as high as they have ever been."

"Your son--" Andromeda started to say.

"Is a scandal, indeed, but also a hero," Lupin hastily interjected before she could say something that might cause Selima to lose her temper; her eyes were already narrowing dangerously. "And we werewolves are not as scandalous as we once were, either. Things have changed since the war ended, Andromeda. It is true that Narcissa has made some grave errors of judgment in the past, but she did risk her life to fight against the Death Eaters in the end. And I think that all of us, no matter what side of the war we were on, have done things that we regret. I think that what matters most is how we conduct ourselves in the present, and try not to repeat the mistakes of the past."

"But it is true that I have never apologized to Andromeda," Narcissa said quietly. Lupin knew from experience that Slytherins hated to apologize or admit they were wrong, but Narcissa bowed her head and said humbly, "So I apologize to you now, Sister, for the things that I said and the way that I treated you after you married Ted." 

Then she raised her head and met her sister's eyes. "But you are wrong to think that I only want to reconcile with you because I have no friends. I do have friends." She gestured at the people sitting in the room, and Lupin and the women smiled. "Only a few, but friends who are much truer than the ones that I had in my Death Eater days, and I value them all the more for that. The reason that I wished to make peace with you, Andromeda, is because our entire family is dead except for you and me and Sirius and Nymphadora, and I do not wish to lose what little family I have left."

Andromeda stared at her uncertainly, obviously torn as to whether or not to accept Narcissa's overture of peace, but then Tonks sighed heavily and complained, "I really wish that you wouldn't call me 'Nymphadora'!"

That lightened the mood, and the others laughed. "I'm sorry, but it is your name, dear," Narcissa said with a smile. "It isn't seemly to call a woman by her last name."

"It's a perfectly fine name," Andromeda sniffed, looking offended.

"Do you have any idea how much it got me teased at Hogwarts?" Tonks groaned. "And how many times people thought it would be funny to call me 'Nympho' or 'Nymphomaniac'?"

Aileen giggled, and the others tried not to smile while Tonks sighed in a long-suffering way. Andromeda just repeated, "It's a perfectly fine name. You shouldn't let the taunts of a few ignorant people bother you so much."

"It was more than a few, Mum," Tonks grumbled, in what was obviously a long-standing argument between Andromeda and herself.

"And I am sorry that I didn't get to know my niece sooner," Narcissa added. "Because she is a very kind and brave young woman."

Tonks looked startled but pleased, and her face turned pink, in contrast with her violet hair. Andromeda gave her younger sister a long and thoughtful look, then finally said, "Well, as you said, there are few enough of us left, so I suppose we might as well make peace." She extended her hand to Narcissa, who looked stunned for a moment, then hastily clasped it.

"Peace, Sister," she said softly.

An awkward moment of silence followed, which Aileen broke by exclaiming cheerfully, "Well then, this calls for a celebration!" She brought out a bottle of fine wine to celebrate the sisters' reconciliation, and some sparkling cider for Narcissa and Branwen.

They sipped their wine and cider, and the conversation flowed more casually and easily, with all of the women except for Tonks and Branwen sharing stories about difficulties they had suffered during past pregnancies.

"I threw up every morning for two months straight..."

"That's nothing! My morning sickness didn't ease up until the fifth month..."

"Nymphadora used to kick me so hard that I thought she might kick her way right out of my stomach! And then, when it was finally time for her to be born, she refused to come out! I was in labor for nearly forty-eight hours..."

"Mum!" a mortified Tonks protested.

"You know, you aren't being very reassuring," Branwen said dryly, resting a hand on the rounded swell of her stomach, which had only recently started to show. "Considering that this is my first child, you ought to be trying to make me feel better instead of making me wonder why anyone would want to get pregnant in the first place!"

"Oh, it's the prerogative of a mother to complain about what a trial childbirth is!" Gwendolyn laughed. "But in the end, it's all worth it! You won't regret it when you hold your baby in your arms for the first time."

The other mothers smiled tenderly and nodded in agreement, and then Aileen said with a mischievous glint in her eyes, "Ah, but the worse trial is that husbands always seem to treat pregnant women as if they're made out of glass!"

"It's true," Goewin agreed. "Math used to act like he was afraid that I'd miscarry if I exerted myself in the slightest. I suppose most women would be happy to be waited on hand and foot by their husbands, but I quickly grew bored of just sitting around doing nothing."

Aileen coughed delicately. "Actually, what I meant was that husbands tend to be too...shall we say, gentle...in the bedroom. Liam was afraid to touch me after about the sixth month, when I was pregnant with Damien."

"Oh," Goewin said, her face instantly turning scarlet. 

Gwendolyn was blushing as well, but she giggled, "Yes, Robert was the same way when I was pregnant with Tristan. Like he thought I would break if he touched me!"

"Yes, it's true," Branwen sighed regretfully without any apparent embarrassment. "Already, Sirius is nervous about...being intimate."

Lupin felt his own face turning red; this was a little bit more than he really wanted to know about his best friend's lovelife!

"Lucius wouldn't sleep with me once the baby started showing," Narcissa said, a shadow falling across her face. "He said he was being considerate of me, but I always suspected that he just didn't want to touch me while I was so fat--I felt as huge and ungainly and ugly as a whale. I was so relieved when Draco was finally born!" 

Then her expression brightened. "But Lukas says that he thinks I'm even more beautiful now that I'm pregnant." She giggled and smiled slyly. "He was worried that he might hurt me and the baby at first, too, but I assured him that I wasn't that delicate, and, well...let us say that his wolfish ways are a benefit in this sort of circumstance." She lowered her eyes demurely, but said with great relish, "He cannot control himself when the full moon draws near."

The women laughed merrily, and Lupin's face grew even redder. "I'm not sure that I should really be listening to this conversation," he muttered sheepishly.

"Ah, but you must confirm for us, Professor Lupin--is it true that werewolves are insatiable lovers?" Aileen asked, grinning wickedly.

"Aileen!" Narcissa protested, laughing, and Goewin and Gwendolyn gasped at her boldness. Selima just rolled her eyes a little.

"I think," Lupin said, still blushing furiously, "that Narcissa has already answered that question."

Andromeda shook her head and sighed, then said, "Men always seem to think that a woman's...appetite...decreases when she's pregnant, when really, I've found that it's more the opposite."

The other women giggled and nodded, except for Delia, whose marriage to Andreas Avery had not been a happy one, and Selima, who sipped at her wine and held herself aloof from the conversation, as if she found it slightly distasteful. And of course, Tonks, who looked even more mortified than before.

"MUM!" she shouted, clapping her hands over her ears. "Do you think I want to hear that kind of stuff about you and Dad?!"

"You should be paying attention, Nymphadora," Aileen teased. "After all, in a few years, I expect you'll be making a baby of your own with that handsome Mr. Shacklebolt!"

"Speaking of which," Andromeda said, frowning at her daughter, "is 'handsome Mr. Shacklebolt' ever going to make an honest woman of you?"

"Mum!" Tonks cried.

"Well, you've been seeing each other for over a year now," her mother pointed out unrepentantly. "In fact, the two of you have moved in together, haven't you? I'm not sure if I approve of that."

Lupin saw Selima's eyes light up with interest as she mentally filed away that bit of gossip; evidently, she hadn't heard about it yet. "There is a saying, Nymphadora," Selima said sagely, "that there is no need to purchase the cow when one can get the milk for free."

Andromeda nodded in agreement, and Tonks said indignantly, "I am not a cow! And begging your pardon, Lady Selima, but it's none of your business--nor yours either, Mum! I'm an adult, and it's my right to live my life as I see fit, with or without your approval."

"No matter how old you are, you're my daughter and I worry about you, Nymphadora," Andromeda protested, looking a little hurt. "First you take that dangerous job as an Auror over my objections, and now you're living with an older man who doesn't seem to be in a hurry to marry you--Kingsley is one of my contemporaries, you know. He's old enough to be your father."

Tonks sighed irritably. "You're exaggerating a bit, Mum, and besides, I don't see that the age difference is all that big a deal. Math is old enough to be Goewin's grandfather, after all. Er, no offense, Goewin."

"None taken," Goewin said serenely. "Although the circumstances that resulted in our marriage were a bit different from yours and Kingsley's."

"It isn't really all that big a difference," Selima said casually, unexpectedly coming to Tonks's defense. "No more than the difference between myself and Severin."

"Well, yes, but that was an arranged marriage, wasn't it?" Andromeda asked.

"Yes, but if Mr. Shacklebolt and Nymphadora wish to make a match, I see no reason for you to object," Selima replied. "He is of good family, and pure of blood. Although if she were my daughter, I would hurry the wedding along."

"I don't care about his blood purity," Andromeda said sharply. "All I care about is whether he will make my daughter happy or not."

"Ahem!" Tonks cleared her throat to interrupt their conversation. "Shouldn't I be the best judge of whether or not Kingsley makes me happy? Which he does, by the way. And you don't need to talk about me like I'm some despoiled maiden from a romance novel. Kingsley and I did discuss marriage, but I said that I wanted to take things slowly and not rush into it. So you see, it was my idea to postpone getting married, not his. As for moving in together, we were keeping separate flats, but it seemed like a waste of money when we were spending most of our free time at my place, anyway. It's just more practical to live together."

"Then why not get married?!" Andromeda demanded.

"Jeez, Mum, you're so old-fashioned," Tonks said. "Aren't you the one who ran off with Dad and got disowned by your family?"

"I was disowned for marrying a Muggle-born, but at least I married him!" Andromeda snapped.

"I love Kingsley," Tonks said in a more serious voice. "And I'm sure that we'll get married someday, but I'm not in any rush, and I want to wait until the time is right."

Andromeda heaved an exasperated sigh, and Selima said sympathetically, "Young people these days--it seems as if they live to vex their parents, don't they? Although, come to think of it, you must have vexed your parents considerably in your day, Andromeda dear."

Andromeda glared at Selima for a moment, than laughed helplessly and said, "I suppose I did! So is this my punishment?"

"Honestly, Mother!" Tonks said crossly. "It's not like I plan out my life with the sole intention of annoying you! I told you that Kingsley and I will get married someday--when we're ready, and not before!"

Aileen patted her hand comfortingly. "It's every parent's wish to see their child safely and happily settled down, Nymphadora. And I'm sure that your mother's eager to see you get married and give her a grandchild or two."

"I'm a little afraid of having children now, after all the stories I've just heard!" Tonks said, only half-jokingly. "And will everyone please stop calling me 'Nymphadora'?!"

"It's a perfectly fine name!" Andromeda insisted, and Tonks groaned while everyone else laughed.

*** 

"So how was the baby shower?" Snape asked when Lupin returned home.

"Interesting," Lupin replied with an amused smile, handing Snape the candy-filled paper cradle. Snape popped a chocolate into his mouth, and Lupin continued, "Very educational, in fact. I learned a great deal about childbirth, and much more than I ever expected to know about the sex lives of pregnant women."

Snape choked on the piece of the candy, and Lupin solicitously thumped him on the back. "Never mind," he gasped. "Forget I asked!"

"Oh, and Andromeda wants Tonks and Kingsley to hurry up and get married. It seems she doesn't approve of them living in sin--"

"Lupin! I just said I don't want to know!"

"And," Lupin added with a grin, "they wanted to know if werewolves really are insatiable lovers."

"LUPIN!"

*** 

[So what if you can see the darkest side of me?  
No one would ever change this animal I have become  
Help me believe it's not the real me  
Somebody help me tame this animal  
\--"Animal I Have Become" by Three Days Grace]

Ash was in a foul mood these days. Not just he, but his entire pack had been thoroughly and rudely interrogated by Dawlish, despite Shacklebolt's attempts to mitigate things, and he'd all but been branded a murderer in the press. Rita Skeeter had not--quite--openly accused him of murder, but then again, she didn't need to, because his stepfather had conveniently done it for her in an exclusive interview with the Daily Prophet. Dawlish had been a little more circumspect, being mindful of the fact that Arthur Weasley was still his superior, but he had managed to convey the impression to Skeeter and her readers that Ash was the prime suspect in the two recent murders without actually stating it outright.

And nearly everyone at the Ministry was giving him fearful and suspicious looks, even more so than usual, to the point where he told Arthur that perhaps he should resign. "Your support of me is causing people to question your judgment, and if you are replaced as Minister, I'll most likely be fired, anyway. Maybe if I quit now, at least one of us can keep our job."

Arthur shook his head. "I appreciate the offer, but if you resign now, people will take it as a sign of guilt, which will only further weaken my position and convince everyone that werewolves are monsters to be feared. I know that it's difficult to endure all the malicious gossip and suspicious looks, but you have to be strong, Ash. I'm confident that Tonks and Kingsley and Harry will be able to prove your innocence soon."

That was easy for Arthur to say; the worst that could happen to him was that he would lose his job as Minister of Magic. The worst that could happen to Ash was that he would be arrested and locked up in Azkaban for the rest of his life--a fate that he considered worse than death. A wolf's first instinct when faced with danger was to flee, not to stand and fight, unless it had no choice. But the werewolves were no longer anonymous, now that Lukas was a Lord and Ash worked at the Ministry, and hiding among the crowd of misfits and degenerates in Knockturn Alley was no longer an option. 

Which was why Ash was on edge and his inner wolf was tense and restless when he arrived at Hogwarts for his scheduled fencing lesson with Tsubasa. He had hoped that an hour or two of sparring practice might help him work off a little of his aggression, but instead it seemed to be having the opposite effect. His werewolf speed and strength were matched by Tsubasa's skill and experience, and Ash's temper, while fueling his strength, hindered his ability to think clearly, and made him a bit reckless and careless. 

He had yet to score a hit on Tsubasa, while the crane swordsman had struck several stinging blows to his arms and chest--not hard enough to really hurt him, but enough to get his attention and point out the weaknesses in his defense. Somehow, this annoyed him more than a single, solid blow would, increasing his anger and frustration, and he growled irritably, like a wolf being tormented by a wasp or bee. 

This was all part of the lesson, of course, but Ash was having a hard time keeping a rein on his temper because the wolf wanted Tsubasa to simply fight all out instead of this endless dancing around--strike and retreat, strike and retreat, over and over again. The wolf wanted to either dominate or be dominated, because that was how the pecking order in a pack was established; it had little patience for any sort of middle ground.

He also felt frustration of a different sort as the practice bout went on, because these mock combat sessions always aroused the wolf. Well, to be honest, Tsubasa himself aroused the wolf, but the fighting heightened that desire, even more so than usual today, with the adrenaline rushing through his body and the smell of sweat--which always made him think of sex, at least when Tsubasa was involved--combining to drive the wolf into a near-frenzy where the line between anger and lust was becoming dangerously blurred. He was not quite sure if he wanted to claim Tsubasa as his prey or his mate--or both. 

At least, Ash the man was not sure what he wanted; the wolf was not nearly so conflicted. _Mine!_ the wolf snarled impatiently, as Tsubasa and Ash crossed swords, then backed away and circled around each other, looking for an opening. _Just take him, and claim him, and make him mine!_

"No!" Ash gasped aloud, struggling to keep the wolf under control. Most times, the wolf was simply a part of him, but at other times, like now, it felt almost like a separate and distinct personality inside his body. He had never before felt the wolf this strong within him when it wasn't near the full moon, and he was afraid of being swept away and losing himself completely in the wolf's personality. He found it increasingly hard to concentrate on his battle with Tsubasa when he was already battling the wolf, who found his hesitation inexplicable. It wanted to cast aside these silly wooden sticks and simply pounce on Tsubasa and pin him to the floor...or maybe up against the wall...

A sudden, sharp pain in his hand jolted him out of that fantasy, and his sword went flying across the room as Tsubasa knocked it out of his grasp. "I don't know where your mind is, Ash," Tsubasa said sternly, "but it's clearly not on this match. I know that you must be upset about the murders, but you need to control your anger, not let it control you. All of your werewolf strength is useless if you let your emotions cloud your judgment and affect your concentration, leaving you open to attacks like that one."

Ash's hold on the wolf slipped, and he found himself lunging forward to grab hold of Tsubasa's sword and yank it effortlessly out of his hands. "Is it really?" he snarled. "Useless, I mean." He tossed aside the wooden sword and it fell to the floor with a clatter. "Because I seem to have disarmed you."

Tsubasa, looking startled and nervous, took a step backwards as Ash moved towards him. "Not really, because you've broken the rules of the match. If that sword had been made of steel instead of wood, you'd have lost all your fingers."

"But it's not made of steel," Ash--or rather, the wolf--growled. "It's just a stick, and I'm tired of playing pretend. I'm tired of playing games." He saw a flicker of hesitation in Tsubasa's eyes, a single second where he was trying to decide whether to stand his ground or flee, and the wolf took advantage of that moment of indecision, and leapt forward with lightning speed, pushing Tsubasa up against the wall. 

Tsubasa's hands reached out, probably to push him away, but Ash didn't wait to find out what Tsubasa's intentions were. He grabbed the other man's wrists and pinned his arms up above his head. Tsubasa struggled, his body twisting against Ash's in an attempt to free himself, but the movement only excited the wolf even more. He growled and pressed his body more firmly against Tsubasa's, allowing the other man to feel his arousal, and Tsubasa gasped.

"Ash," he whispered, and Ash looked into his eyes, expecting to see fear or anger or disgust, but he wasn't quite sure what he saw in Tsubasa's face. His pupils were dilated to the point where the irises were barely visible, making his brown eyes seem almost black, and his lips were parted, his breathing quick and hoarse and ragged. Ash brushed his mouth against Tsubasa's neck, and felt his pulse racing in his veins. He could feel Tsubasa's heart pounding rapidly in his chest, and it suddenly occurred to him that the symptoms for fear and lust were remarkably similar, and he wasn't sure whether Tsubasa wanted him or was afraid of him, or maybe both.

*** 

Before he knew what was happening, Tsubasa found his back pressed against the wall, with his body trapped between the wall and the werewolf's body, and he realized that he had never seen Ash at full strength before. Oh, he had fought to the best of his abilities during the practice sessions, but within the confines of the rules that Tsubasa had laid down.

For the first time, he was seeing the wolf completely unleashed, and it was both terrifying and glorious to behold. Even disarmed, there were things that he could do to defend himself, but it was difficult to think with Ash growling in his ear, with the hardness of Ash's arousal pressing into his groin. His heart was pounding, his breath quickening with both fear and desire, and when he felt Ash's lips touch his neck, all he wanted to do was to bare his throat and surrender himself to the wolf.

Ash gazed at him uncertainly, the wolf's aggression receding for a moment, and perhaps in that instant, he could have pushed Ash away and attempted to reason with him, or at least disabled him with a spell. But he hesitated, torn between common sense and desire, and the moment passed. He moaned softly, unable to stop his body from responding to Ash's, and as soon as Ash felt Tsubasa's arousal, the doubt in his eyes vanished, to be replaced by the wolf's feral hunger.

Ash's hands grasped his shoulders, and Tsubasa found himself spun around--so quickly that it made him dizzy--and pushed face forward into the wall. He had just barely enough time to brace his palms against the wall to prevent his face from hitting it painfully. Then he could feel the warmth of Ash's body against his, could feel Ash's breath hot against his cheek as he growled in a low, sensuous rumble. And then he cried out as he felt Ash move against him, the werewolf's erection grinding into the cleft of his buttocks with such vigor that he almost thought Ash would penetrate him right through the layers of clothing separating their bodies. 

And to his embarrassment, he couldn't prevent himself from grinding back against Ash, the two of them dry-humping against the wall like a couple of horny teenagers. In fact, he'd never been so bold as to do this in a classroom when he had been a student at Salem, and somehow, he suspected that the consequences would be even worse for a teacher caught in this kind of compromising position than a student. At the very least, it would be humiliating if one of his students happened to walk in on them, and probably even more humiliating if McGonagall found out about it and gave him a stern lecture--assuming that she didn't persuade the Headmaster to fire him. 

So he opened his mouth to tell Ash to stop, but instead he heard himself groan, "At least lock the door!"

He heard the rustle of cloth as Ash presumably pulled his wand out of his robes, and then the werewolf barked out the incantations to a locking spell and also a silence spell. _Ah, good idea,_ Tsubasa thought distractedly. _I hadn't thought about that._ It would be nearly as bad if a student or teacher overheard them moaning as it would if they actually walked in on them having sex.

Ash turned his attention back to Tsubasa, growling and tugging impatiently at the ties of his hakama. The skirt-like garment slipped off his hips and fell to the floor, then Ash yanked down Tsubasa's underpants and pushed his kimono up above his waist. There was more rustling of cloth as Ash fumbled with his own clothes, and the metallic rasp of a zipper being pulled down. Then Tsubasa felt the tip of a wand touch his skin just below the bunched-up folds of his kimono as Ash murmured a spell, and something wet and slippery trickled down between his buttocks. Ash's fingers slipped inside him, and he moaned, pushing back against them eagerly.

Ash growled impatiently, and the movement of his fingers was quick and rough, but still, Tsubasa wondered if it meant something, that the werewolf was taking the time to prepare him at all when he was clearly overwhelmed by his animal nature. Maybe Ash was trying to fight the wolf...or maybe the wolf didn't want to hurt its mate. Which would mean that this was something more than a quick shag, and he didn't know whether he found that idea comforting or frightening...but it was difficult to think with that rhythmic in-and-out motion of Ash's fingers distracting him, and he lost his train of thought entirely when the fingers pulled away, and something hard and blunt nudged at him, then thrust deeply into him without any more warning than that.

He offered up a quick mental blessing for the silence spell, because he couldn't stop himself from crying out as Ash thrust into him hard and fast, almost brutally, with no gentleness or tenderness, just the single-minded need of an animal in heat. In fact, since he couldn't see Ash's face, he could almost imagine that he really was being mounted by a wolf, especially with Ash growling and snarling hungrily into his ear. He groaned loudly, finding the idea strangely intoxicating, even though bestiality was not something that had ever appealed to him before. Of course, he was part animal himself, so the idea was not as repellant as it might have been to a normal human, but he'd never felt the urge to mate in his crane form, either. Besides, most of his previous lovers had been tengu, and a crow and a crane were not exactly physically compatible.

He moaned helplessly as Ash continued to pound into him, his own body rocking forward and back with the motion of the werewolf's body. It felt so good, so right, to have Ash inside him, but he still wanted more. He was hard and aching, and he wanted to touch himself, but Ash was thrusting into him so hard that he needed to keep both hands firmly braced against the wall to keep from being slammed into it. And Ash seemed to be too caught up in his own need to notice Tsubasa's at the moment.

"Please," Tsubasa begged, then cried out as Ash thrust into him even harder, if that was possible. He wasn't sure if it was really in response to his plea, though, or because the werewolf was nearing climax; his growls had given way to rapid, almost desperate panting. With a final, deep thrust, Ash came inside him and a howl echoed through the room, a sound that was eerily wolf-like and didn't seem human at all.

Before Tsubasa could utter a single moan of frustration, Ash bit down hard on the back of his neck, and he cried out as his hips bucked forward with a jerk, thrusting into empty air, and he came without Ash even needing to touch him, semen splattering against the wall in front of him.

Breathing heavily, Tsubasa leaned forward, resting his forearms and forehead against the wall because his legs felt rather wobbly, and he wasn't sure if he could keep standing upright without any support. Ash slumped against him with a sigh, his head lolling forward to rest on Tsubasa's shoulder. The weight of Ash's body against his own felt good, and now that the edge had been taken off their mutual lust, Tsubasa found that his fear and tension had also drained away, to be replaced by a feeling of utter contentment. 

Unfortunately, that feeling did not last very long, because a moment later, Ash whispered in a trembling voice, "Sweet Merlin, what just happened here?"

"If you have to ask, then you're not as bright as I thought you were, Ash," Tsubasa replied bitterly; in spite of that explosive session of lovemaking, nothing had changed, it seemed. He angrily shoved the werewolf away from him and pulled up his underpants and hakama, ignoring the wet trickle of Ash's semen running down his thighs. "You know perfectly well what just happened," he added as he knotted the ties of the hakama around his waist.

"What do you want from me?" Ash cried, a hint of panic in his voice.

"I want you!" Tsubasa shouted, finally losing his temper after weeks of patient, cautious courtship--save for the one night they had slept together after receiving Laura's letter. The two of them had been dancing around each other like wary sparring partners ever since they had first met, never quite connecting in spite of the attraction that they both obviously felt. Ash wasn't the only one who was tired of playing games; Tsubasa was tired of being patient and understanding with his not-quite-lover, and he was tired of the werewolf's inability to make up his mind about what he wanted. 

"I want all of you, not just your body--I want your whole heart, Ash! Get out of here, and don't come back again until you can give me that!"

"I...I'm sorry," Ash mumbled guiltily, hanging his head as he adjusted his clothing. "I didn't mean to...I just lost control. I hope I didn't hurt you."

"You stupid wolf!" Tsubasa shouted furiously, because Ash had hurt him, although not in the way he had meant. He wasn't sure what angered him more: the fact that Ash thought he would let himself be taken against his will, or the fact that the werewolf had rejected him yet again. 

He reached out and placed his hand on Ash's sleeve, and then invoked the Weaving magic that was intrinsic to the crane clan. Tsubasa lacked the skill and talent of his cousin Ichiro, but he possessed enough innate ability to make thread obey his commands in a crude sort of way--enough to manipulate the cloth of Ash's robe and cause it to constrict and bind itself around the werewolf.

Ash let out a startled cry as his sleeves pinned his arms to his sides, and the loose folds of his robe wound around his legs, effectively hobbling him. It would not hold him for long; Ash's werewolf strength would probably allow him to break free in a few minutes at most, but it would immobilize him long enough for Tsubasa to prove his point.

"Accio!" Tsubasa cried, and a sword flew off the rack on the wall into his hand--a steel sword this time, not a wooden one. He kicked Ash's legs out from under him, knocking him onto his back, then pounced on the werewolf, straddling him and pinning him to the floor. Ash struggled for a moment, but went completely still when Tsubasa pressed the razor-sharp edge of the blade against his throat.

"Never make the mistake of thinking that I'm helpless because I've been disarmed, Ash," Tsubasa hissed, as the werewolf stared up at him, eyes wide with shock, looking more stunned than frightened. "You could not lay a hand on me if I did not permit it. Never forget that."

Ash nodded mutely, moving very slowly and carefully to avoid being cut by the sword, then tilted his head back--exposing his throat in a gesture of submission. Tsubasa sighed wearily and lowered his sword, realizing that it was himself more than Ash that he was angry at. If Ash couldn't lay a hand on him against his will, then he had no one but himself to blame for what had just happened.

And then he gasped as he felt very tangible evidence beneath him that Ash was becoming aroused again. He blushed with chagrin; it was stupid of him to have pulled such a stunt, and moreover, put himself in such a compromising position when he knew that the heat of battle excited the wolf.

Tsubasa's body was slower to recover than Ash's, but he felt desire beginning to stir within him in response to Ash's arousal, and he hastily scrambled to his feet, releasing the spell on Ash's robe. "Get out!" he shouted, and was relieved when Ash meekly slunk out of the classroom, because despite his indignant words, he wasn't sure that he could have resisted temptation if Ash had remained. 

And he wasn't really sure that he could stick to his resolve if Ash came back again later; he seemed to lose control of his body whenever the werewolf was near. Being taken up against the wall had been completely unexpected--but also raw, and hot, and exciting, in a way he had never experienced before, like the primal urge of two animals in heat. He suddenly began to fantasize about being alone in his office with Ash, imagining the werewolf bending him forward across the desk and taking him from behind...

And now he was fully hard and aroused, despite the fact that he'd just had sex a few minutes ago. Tsubasa cursed and punched his fist into the wall, welcoming the pain because it distracted him from his lust.

He replaced the sword on the rack, then leaned against the wall, cradling his bruised fist in his good hand; fortunately, nothing seemed to be broken, and a bit of healing salve should set things to right, but he didn't need to be a Seer to foresee a lot of cold showers in his future. This was not what he had imagined when he had wondered what meeting his lifemate would be like. He had imagined physical pleasure, yes, but also something more romantic--eyes meeting eyes, and love at first sight, like in the old fairy tales and legends. This just didn't seem right; surely his father's and Reiko's marriage was nothing like his relationship--or lack thereof--with Ash. Of course, he didn't know what they did in the privacy of their bedroom, but the love that they shared seemed to be one of gentle affection and companionship rather than passionate desire.

But Tsubasa's father Yokuto had been a grieving widower when he had met Reiko; his second marriage was bound to be different from his first--a more calm and mature, though no less loving, type of relationship than the passionate union of lifemates newly wed. Tsubasa's mother had died when he was very young, and his memories of that time were a little vague, but he remembered them being physically affectionate with each other, always holding hands, kissing, and hugging to the extent that they had seemed a little indecorous to the humans that they had lived among during their travels. He didn't recall them appearing to be possessed of the kind of overpowering lust that he felt for Ash, but then again, he had been viewing them through a child's innocent eyes.

Tsubasa shook his head; he could hardly ask his father what his sex life with his mother had been like! Well, he could, but he would be too mortified to do so, and more importantly, he'd have to explain why he was asking. He didn't want to worry his father, and Yokuto would definitely be worried if he knew about Tsubasa's troubled off-and-on relationship with Ash. Even worse, he might try to meddle and play matchmaker. 

For all that Lord Kazuhiko thought that Yokuto was a rebel for spending so much time among humans, he was, in his own way, quite conservative. Cranes always mated for life, and Yokuto's dearest wish was to see his son settle down and choose a mate. It worried him greatly that Tsubasa was still single in his late twenties, at an age when most people with crane blood were already married, and perhaps had a child or two, despite the fact that Reiko would gently chide him and tell him to let Tsubasa take things at his own pace. Tsubasa absolutely did not want his father acting as a go-between for himself and a bad-tempered werewolf--especially when he wasn't sure whether he really wanted that werewolf to be his mate.

Oh, he wanted Ash, to be sure, but lust was not the same thing as love. Surely there must be more to being lifemates than brief bouts of violent sex followed by long periods of his lover completely avoiding him.

Not that the sex wasn't good...Tsubasa shivered at the memory of Ash thrusting inside him, and of Ash's teeth clamped down on the back of his neck. But after it was over, he was somehow left feeling empty inside, and even more alone than he'd felt before their lovemaking. He wasn't even sure if it could actually be called "lovemaking". There had been a great deal of need, but little if any love or affection in what they had just done up against the wall.

And the worst part of it was that he still wanted to do it all over again. 

He sighed and took out his wand, cleaned up the mess on the wall, then left the classroom. He headed in the direction of his quarters, intending to take a cold shower, but he felt tired and sore and heartsick, and suddenly the castle walls seemed unbearably oppressive. He longed to be under the open sky, to feel the wind on his face, and he changed direction and headed for the Astronomy Tower instead.

There were no students on the Tower at this time of day, fortunately for Tsubasa, since he didn't really want any company right now. He turned his face up to the sky and sighed, feeling a small measure of relief. He knew that Kazuhiko thought he was too human, but at times like these, he was glad that he was a crane and could find joy and comfort in the freedom of flight. He climbed up on the ramparts, spread his arms wide, as if inviting the wind to embrace him, and leaped off the Tower.

His body transformed automatically as he plummeted towards the ground, and he beat his wings to bring himself back up in the air, then belatedly became of aware of the sound of people screaming and shouting below him. He looked down to see a crowd of students staring up at him with expressions of fear and shock and excitement on their faces as they pointed at him, and then McGonagall marched into view and shouted, "Professor Tsubasa, get down here at once!"

Oops; he hadn't noticed that he'd had an audience when he jumped off the Tower. It was an unusually clear and sunny fall day, so many of the students must have decided to spend the afternoon outdoors. Tsubasa flew down to the ground, resumed his human form, and tried for a look of innocence as he asked politely, "Yes, Professor McGonagall?"

"Just what did you think you were doing, jumping off the Astronomy Tower like that?!" she demanded. "Did you ever stop to consider that you might frighten the students?"

Yvonne Deveraux was one of the students staring at him, her eyes wide and her face pale. "When we saw you jump off the Tower, we thought...we thought...well, that you..."

"That you were trying to commit suicide or something!" Dennis Creevey exclaimed.

Of course Tsubasa hadn't stopped to consider what the students might think, but he wasn't about to admit that to McGonagall. "I thought that all the students knew that I was a shapeshifter," he said mildly. "Since my true form is that of a bird, obviously I was never in any danger."

"Oh," Dennis said sheepishly. "I didn't think about that."

"Well, you still scared us!" Yvonne pouted. "It's not every day that you see a teacher jumping off a Tower! Professor Chizuru never jumped off any Towers."

"I apologize for alarming you, Miss Deveraux," Tsubasa said gently, giving her a charming smile; although he wasn't normally the manipulative type, he wasn't above using his good looks to disarm a situation like this one. The tengu had taught him to be practical and to use every weapon available at his command.

"Oh...well, it's okay," Yvonne said, blushing and looking flustered. "We should have remembered that you were a crane."

Tsubasa nodded at the other students and bowed in apology. "And I apologize to the rest of you as well. I thank you for your concern."

The students smiled at him at sheepishly, mumbling things like, "It's okay" and "We should have known," although McGonagall was still scowling at him, her arms crossed over her chest, not looking charmed in the least. He had the distinct impression that she would have given him detention if she could, or taken points off his House if he'd had one.

"I hope that from now on, you will remember to conduct yourself in a manner befitting a teacher, Professor Tsubasa," she said sternly. A couple of the students giggled but quickly fell silent when she turned her glare on the crowd, seeking out the offenders.

Tsubasa bowed again and said contritely, "I most certainly shall, Deputy Headmistress." It would not be wise to offend McGonagall too much, since she would become his supervisor after Dumbledore retired. And besides, he rather liked her. She reminded him of one of his tengu instructors, a tough old crow who treated her pupils mercilessly on the sparring grounds, but was always fair, and kind in a gruff sort of way. Not that McGonagall would appreciate the comparison.

Lupin emerged from behind the crowd of students, chuckling good-naturedly; Tsubasa hadn't noticed him earlier during all the ruckus. "Well, there's no harm done, Minerva, and I'm sure that Tsubasa didn't intend to frighten the students. Flying is second nature to him, after all, and he's used to living among other shapeshifters, so it wouldn't have occurred to him that the students might think he was in danger."

"Well, from now on, just keep in mind that the students here aren't used to seeing people sprout feathers in midair!" McGonagall said tartly. She turned on the crowd of students and snapped, "And don't the rest of you have any studying to do?"

The students reluctantly headed back towards the castle, shepherded by McGonagall, and Lupin chuckled again. "By the way, I thought Takeshi said that the crane folk were supposed to be discreet when living among humans. None of us even knew that he had crane blood until he revealed himself to Aric after they became mates."

"Well, Takeshi has always been a good boy who follows the rules, while I've always been a bit of a rebel," Tsubasa replied with a smile. "And he doesn't want to cause trouble for his brother, who has a prominent position in the clan as the chief apprentice to the Head Weaver. Bad behavior by one family member reflects poorly on the entire family, you see, but fortunately for me, my father is a bit of a rebel himself, so he doesn't mind too much when I annoy the clan elders."

"I see," Lupin said, his blue eyes twinkling mischievously. "Rather like the way that Severus has scandalized the wizarding world. Even his mother, the very proper and traditional Lady Selima, has given up trying to reform him."

"Something like that," Tsubasa agreed. Then he noticed Lupin's nostrils flare slightly as the other Professor gave him a curious look, and to his horror, he realized that Lupin's keen werewolf sense of smell could probably pick up the scent of sex on him. He hadn't even bothered to use a cleaning spell on himself, and his skin suddenly felt damp and itchy on the places where Ash's seed still covered his thighs.

Lupin made no mention of any scent, but he tilted his head to one side and said casually, "I just noticed, that's a nasty bruise on the back of your neck, Tsubasa." 

Tsubasa's hand flew up to cover the offending mark, although it was obviously too late to hide it. His long tail of air, tied off at the top of his head samurai-style, rather than at the nape of his neck, only partially obscured the bite mark left by Ash, and he fervently hoped that McGonagall and the students hadn't noticed it. 

"Ah yes, well...I...I got it during practice," he stammered, not very convincingly. He fought hard to keep from blushing, but he felt his face growing warm despite his best efforts, because he was quite sure that Lupin could tell the difference between a normal bruise and a bite mark.

"Right, you had a lesson with Ash today, didn't you?" Lupin said, as if he had just remembered, although Tsubasa suspected that the werewolf was perfectly aware of his schedule. Lupin frowned, a look of slightly exaggerated puzzlement on his face. "But isn't the back of the neck a rather odd place to be hit? I'm no expert in these things, but I would have thought that most blows would land on the torso or the arms. Those would be the most exposed targets, after all."

"Yes, well...Ash is rather inexperienced, after all," Tsubasa said hastily. "As a novice, being unfamiliar with the rules of swordplay, sometimes he does the unexpected."

"Still," Lupin persisted, "he would have had to strike you from behind in order to leave a mark in that spot. I'm surprised that a novice student was able to sneak up behind a master swordsman like you. He must be making remarkable progress." Lupin smiled innocently. "Or perhaps it's because you are a remarkable teacher. Or both."

"He didn't precisely 'sneak,'" Tsubasa muttered, feeling his face turning even redder. _It was more like "pounce,"_ he added silently. "But yes, he is a talented student." He cleared his throat and said, "Well, it's been nice chatting with you, Remus, but I'd like to get back to my quarters and put a little salve on my bruises."

"Of course," Lupin said, his eyes twinkling merrily, and Tsubasa hurried on his way, feeling utterly humiliated. He was beginning to understand why Snape found the Gryffindors so annoying; they all seemed to have that mischievous sense of humor. On the other hand, what did it say about the Potions Master that he kept a Gryffindor as his lover? He shook his head, wondering if perhaps Snape was a masochist. Well, he supposed that it wasn't really any of his business.

He managed to make it to his quarters without further incident, took a shower, and applied some healing salve to his neck and hand. When he emerged from the bathroom, he found a letter sitting on his desk; it must have been left by a house-elf.

"This is just what I needed," Tsubasa muttered gloomily as he read a pleasant and chatty letter from his parents asking how he was doing at his new job--and coyly asking about his "wolf friend". Takeshi must have written to them about Ash--no, that wasn't really fair. Takeshi might tease him a little, but he wasn't really the type to gossip. It was probably Aunt Haruko; she and Reiko were good friends, and they loved to gossip about their sons with each other, so she had probably mentioned that Tsubasa had brought Ash to dinner at the restaurant.

"Note to self," he muttered. "Next time, do not bring a date to your aunt and uncle's restaurant if you don't want the news getting back to your parents." But back then, it hadn't seemed like a big deal; Ash had merely been a friend and a potential romantic partner. He hadn't imagined that things would get this complicated between them.

He picked up a pen and began writing a reply, taking care to sound cheerful and upbeat, including a few humorous stories about his students, and saying that his "wolf friend" was just fine and that they were still getting to know each other. He avoided any mention of the recent murders, or the fact that his "wolf friend" was a suspect in those murders, because that would certainly cause his parents to immediately Portkey to England in concern, and right now he had more than he could handle just dealing with Ash. 

Hopefully Haruko wouldn't write to Reiko about it, either. He thought that she wouldn't want to worry his parents anymore than he did, but just to be on the safe side, he owled the letter to her along with a note asking her to send the letter on to his parents through the restaurant's Portkey, but asking her not to say anything about the murders until the true culprit was safely apprehended.

*** 

Lupin headed to the dungeon, a little distracted by the musky scent of sex. That scent, of course, had disappeared along with Tsubasa, but the memory of it seemed to linger in his nostrils, causing him to growl softly with hunger and anticipation. Lupin wasn't a voyeur, and he didn't have any particular desire to fantasize about Tsubasa and Ash having sex with each other, although he did enjoy teasing the new Professor just a little bit.

But that familiar smell aroused the wolf and made him long for his own mate, as did the bite mark on Tsubasa's neck. Tsubasa had obviously come straight from the Physical Defense classroom, and he thought to himself with amusement, _My, those two must have quite a passion for each other, if they can't even wait till they get to his quarters!_

Of course, he and Severus had indulged in a few "quickies" between classes in their offices, so he wasn't one to talk. Lupin growled a little louder, the wolf growing aroused at the thought of making love with Severus in an empty classroom, a hurried but passionate encounter, with Severus bending him over a desk, or maybe taking him up against the wall. He imagined his mate claiming him, could almost feel the pressure of his mate's teeth sinking into the back of his neck...

"Lupin?" a deep and familiar voice said, and Lupin blinked and looked up to see that his lover was standing in front of him, as if summoned by his thoughts. They were standing in the corridor outside the Potions Master's office, which Severus had just come from, judging by the stack of graded papers he was holding in one arm.

"Lupin?" Severus repeated, frowning at him in concern. "Are you all right? You were walking down the hall in a daze, growling to yourself. If I didn't know better, I would have thought that the moon was full. Honestly, Lupin, if you're going to walk around barking and growling, maybe I should start brewing the Wolfsbane Potion earlier in--"

Lupin shoved him against the wall, cutting off his words with a passionate kiss, and the homework papers went flying into the air. Severus returned the kiss for a moment, probably out of reflex, then shoved Lupin away from him and gasped, "Have you lost your mind, Lupin?!"

Lupin leaned in to nuzzle at his neck. "Want you," he growled. "Need you. Now."

His lover gave him a startled look. "Did the full moon come early this month? Or did you use a Time-Turner to send us a couple of weeks into the future?"

"No," Lupin whispered, nipping at his mate's neck, although the high collar of Severus's robes got in his way. "Does the moon have to be full for me to want you?" His mate was exceedingly possessive and jealous, something that the wolf loved, but Lupin didn't think it would go over well if he told Severus that he'd been turned on by the thought--or rather, the scent--of two other men making love.

"Um, well, no," Severus replied, but he gave Lupin a suspicious look. Then he glanced down the hall, looking relieved when he saw that no students were in sight. "Fine, let's go to our quarters, you idiot wolf." He took out his wand and said, "Accio," and the dropped papers flew back into his hand.

It would only take them a few minutes to walk to their quarters, but Lupin couldn't wait that long. "Now!" he growled insistently, pushing his mate against the wall again.

Severus nearly dropped the papers a second time. "Now?" he asked incredulously, his eyes going wide with shock and horror. "In the middle of the bloody hallway?! Where anyone--especially a student--could see us?!"

The wolf didn't mind that thought too much right now; at least that way everyone would know that Severus belonged to him. But Lupin still possessed just enough self-control to realize that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to have sex someplace where the students might see them. "Your office, then," he growled.

Severus glanced down the hallway one more time, then quickly dragged Lupin into his office, locked the door, and cast a silence spell. Lupin noted with regret that the walls of the office were lined with shelves filled with very breakable glass jars and vials, and then his eyes fell on the desk. Severus noticed the direction of his gaze and hurriedly began clearing off the desk, throwing papers into the drawers and stacking jars on the shelves, while Lupin impatiently struggled out of his clothes, tearing off a few buttons in the process. 

Then he pounced on his lover, too eager to wait for Severus to completely undress, unfastening his trousers and reaching into them to stroke his mate erect. "Merlin's Beard, Lupin!" Severus exclaimed. "What the hell has gotten into you today?"

"I know what I want inside me," Lupin growled in a husky voice. "You."

Severus gasped, and his dark eyes filled with an intense desire that equaled that of the wolf. He made no more protests, and sealed his mouth over Lupin's hungrily, his hand reaching for the one remaining jar on the desk--a jar of lavender oil, their standard lubricant. A muffled little whimper escaped from Lupin's mouth when the flowery scent filled the air.

He offered no resistance, and indeed, complied eagerly when Severus spun him around and bent him over the desk. He squirmed impatiently as his mate stretched and prepared him with his fingers; it felt good, but the wolf wanted more. Severus laughed wickedly in his deep, resonant voice and gave Lupin a light, playful swat on the arse, saying, "Be still, like a good wolf," but that was a command that Lupin found impossible to obey.

In spite of his impatience, he still whined in protest when Severus's fingers pulled away, leaving him empty, but then he let out a wild moan as he felt Severus push into him, slowly but steadily. Yes, this was what the wolf craved! He growled and pushed back against his mate, urging him to pick up the pace, and Severus took the hint, with a wolf-like growl of his own, thrusting harder and faster, the slap of flesh on flesh providing a counterpoint to Lupin's cries of pleasure. His hands scrabbled frantically for purchase on the desk, his fingernails clawing at the smooth, polished surface of the wood, while his hips rocked back and forth in time with his lover's thrusts. He was already on the brink of ecstasy when he felt Severus's hand close around him, moving in quick, rough strokes that made the wolf want to howl, and he knew that he wouldn't last much longer.

"Severus!" Lupin moaned. "Please!" He couldn't get out anything more coherent than that, but gratifyingly, his mate knew exactly what he meant. Severus grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling his torso up off the desk until his back rested against Severus's chest. And despite his urgency, Lupin sighed happily, relishing the contact with his mate. Then he whimpered as he felt Severus's teeth teasingly graze the nape of his neck, and then the howl that he had been holding back ripped loose from his throat as those teeth bit down hard, and a violent shudder wracked his body as he came. A moment later, he heard a hoarse cry, and felt Severus come inside him.

A little while later, as they were getting cleaned up and dressed, Severus asked with a wry smile, "So what exactly brought that on, if not the full moon?"

"Just my werewolf hormones," Lupin said sweetly, feigning innocence. "There must be something in the air."

"Hmm," his lover said suspiciously, but did not pursue the subject any further.

*** 

Ash slunk back home with his tail between his legs (figuratively speaking), and went upstairs to his room, brushing off the greetings and questions of his packmates. He sank down onto the bed and started to reach for a bottle of Firewhiskey that he had hidden under it, then changed his mind. He had already lost control of the wolf once today when he was sober; he had no idea what might happen if the wolf took over again while he was drunk.

He trembled as he remembered what had happened in the classroom with Tsubasa; he had, for a brief time, been completely subsumed into the wolf's personality, something that hadn't happened since he had started taking the Wolfsbane Potion, and never when the moon wasn't full. He had thought, for one horrible moment after he came to his senses, that he had raped his friend, and although Tsubasa had made it clear that he could defend himself, Ash was not comforted. He had still lost control to the wolf, and he could have seriously hurt Tsubasa in spite of the shapeshifter's unique magic; it only took a moment's distraction or hesitation to injure or kill a person, especially with the werewolf's strength and lightning reflexes.

And he still felt terrible, because he knew that he had hurt Tsubasa, emotionally if not physically, and he wondered despairingly how things had gone so wrong. He'd gotten what he had thought he wanted, which was for Tsubasa to return his desire, but his wish had somehow gone awry, becoming twisted and warped. He could not risk taking Tsubasa as his mate, or even a casual lover, if it meant that he would lose himself to the wolf; it would be like having to endure a full moon without Wolfsbane Potion every time that they made love. 

And sooner or later, there was a good chance that he would end up hurting his lover, in spite of Tsubasa's skill as a swordsman and mage. He hadn't forgotten how he and his packmates used to tear into each other during the madness of the full moon, before Lupin had started bringing them the Wolfsbane Potion in an attempt to win them over to the Order's side.

But there was something else contributing to his fear besides the wolf: a tiny voice in his head that whispered that he could trust no one but his pack. His fingers reached up to trace the scar on his face, a reminder of how he had been betrayed before by people that he cared about--not just his father who had given him the scar, but his mother and his friends at the farm who had not tried to help him.

And that had been while he was still human. Now he was a werewolf, a Dark Creature, and surely only a monster could love another monster. In his despair, he forgot, or chose to overlook, the fact that a few of the werewolves did have human spouses. His pack loved him, even if it was more of a brotherly and sisterly sort of love than the passionate love of lifemates. It was better to settle for friendship and the comfort of casual affairs than it would be to watch Tsubasa turn away from him someday in fear or disgust...wasn't it?

The wolf did not agree. The wolf wanted Tsubasa, and as far as it was concerned, Tsubasa wanted the wolf, so it didn't understand what Ash was so upset about. The wolf thought, a bit impatiently, that he should just go ahead and claim Tsubasa--permanently.

However, as far as Ash was concerned, the wolf had gotten him into enough trouble as it was. He swore under his breath, then cast the most powerful wards that he knew on his room, the same ones that the pack used to use to confine themselves during the full moon. Surely that would hold him safely if the wolf decided to go berserk. Then he reached under the bed and grabbed the bottle of Firewhiskey, after all.

*** 

"So?" Imogen asked eagerly as she and Warren and Greyback gathered together in the safe house. "Did you find the heir?"

"Indeed I did," Warren said smugly. "There's even a chance that he might actually be the old Snape Lord's grandson! His name is Sebastien Delauney--"

"Oh, perfect!" Imogen cried delightedly. "One of the Snape ancestors was named Sebastian!"

"It's pure coincidence, of course, but we can use it to our advantage and claim that he was named after Sebastian Snape," Warren agreed. For Greyback's benefit he added, "Sebastian Snape lived in the time of the Founders, and was a friend of Salazar Slytherin. He was probably the most famous of the Snape Lords, at least until our double-crossing Potions Master came along."

Greyback nodded impatiently, not interested in the history lesson. "This young Sebastien, he's willing to go along with your plan and pose as the heir? And does he have a strong enough claim to win his case, or at least draw things out long enough to distract Snape?"

"He has a very strong case," Warren said with satisfaction. "His grandmother was Philomela Delauney, one of Stefan Snape's favorite mistresses. She came from a pureblood family that had fallen on hard times; her father fled England, leaving behind a great deal of debt, and her mother committed suicide, so poor little Philomela had no choice but to sell herself to a brothel in order to survive. But she was not just a common whore. She was beautiful, pureblooded, and well-educated--a combination rare enough to earn her a place in a very expensive and exclusive brothel that catered to the pureblood elite, where she soon caught Stefan Snape's eye and became his favorite in the latter years of his life."

"But don't the girls at those places use birth control charms or potions, especially at a high-class place like the one you're describing?" Greyback objected. "The purebloods are usually careful about where they sow their seeds; they don't want any little bastards mucking up the lines of succession." The werewolf smirked. "Of course, your own father was a bit careless, wasn't he? Lucky for me, as it turns out, since you need me to get rid of your half-brother. But can you really convince the Ministry that this whore would have been careless enough to get pregnant?"

"Yes, I can," Warren said through gritted teeth. If it hadn't been for the Unbreakable Vow, he would have hexed Greyback through the wall for that little dig at his father--something the werewolf knew perfectly well, judging by his malicious smirk. Imogen gave him a cautioning look, silently warning him to keep his temper under control, and Warren took a deep breath to calm himself, then continued, "The manager of the brothel was skimming money off allotted expenses, and tried to cut corners by buying some bargain-priced birth control charms. And naturally, a few of the charms failed, including Philomela's. She was a few months along by the time she realized it, and an abortion potion only made her sick without getting rid of the child." Normally it was easy enough for a witch to abort an unwanted child, but with magic, things were always unpredictable. Even in the womb, a wizarding child with a strong magical gift could prove more tenacious than a Muggle fetus, stubbornly clinging to life and resisting all attempts to destroy it, and the farther along a pregnancy was, the harder it tended to be to abort the child. In fact, sometimes doing so could endanger the mother's life.

"So Philomela had no choice but to keep the brat, then?" Imogen mused.

"Yes, but Stefan Snape was not her only client, so she had no idea which of her clients was the father," Warren replied. "Perhaps if Stefan had been in good health, she might have appealed to him to give her enough money to start a new life elsewhere in exchange for keeping his possible bastard a secret. Then again, perhaps not; the Snapes are known for being ruthless. However, the point was moot since Lord Snape had recently fallen ill and was not expected to survive much longer, and his son Severin wasn't likely to welcome a potential rival heir. If Philomela could not or would not abort the baby, he might well have decided to eliminate both mother and child.

"Desperate to escape England, she managed to persuade one of her other clients, a young man of the Parkinson family, that it was his child, and convinced him to run off to France with her. However, his family cut off his access to their Gringotts account, and when his money ran out, he eventually crawled back home with his tail between his legs, leaving Philomela alone, pregnant, and penniless.

"She had a few distant relatives in France, which is partly why she chose to flee there, but they were disinclined to show much charity to an unwed girl with a fatherless child. She ended up working at another brothel, but as a maidservant this time. She could have taken up her old profession once she'd had the child and regained her figure, but a baby would have been an encumbrance to a courtesan, and she would have had to give him up to an orphanage. For some reason, she was determined to keep her son, maybe because he was all the family she had left, or maybe she just decided that scrubbing floors and dishes was better than being a whore, even a high-priced one.

"The boy grew up into a handsome, charming young man--handsome and charming enough to seduce a wealthy young pureblood woman into eloping with him. However, things did not turn out as he had planned, and the woman's family disinherited her. The wife was a delicate little thing, not used to living in poverty, and she died when Sebastien was only a few years old. The father died a few years after that, killed in an argument over a gambling debt, so Sebastien was mostly raised by his grandmother, who is now also deceased. But before she died, she told him of her past, because she wanted him to know that he was a pureblood descended from old lineage, which is true enough, no matter whom her son's father was, because all of her clients were high-ranking purebloods. That was important to her, because no matter how poor she was, no matter how far into degradation she fell, she still clung to her pureblood pride." 

"I hope this means that she taught Sebastien to behave like a proper pureblood," Imogen said. "He needs to convince the Ministry that he's a viable option to Snape, at least temporarily."

"He's perfect," Warren assured her. "He's handsome, charming, and has enough polish on his manners to pass among high society. That is, in fact, how he makes his living: he befriends wealthy young French purebloods who are looking for a little adventure, and introduces them to the bars and gambling dens and brothels on the seamier side of town--a sort of guide and procurer, if you will. He lives amidst the pureblood elite without actually being a part of them, and that, along with his grandmother's stories, has left him with a hunger and a feeling of entitlement, a desire to claim what is rightfully his."

"Have you convinced him that he'll actually be able to win his claim to the Snape estate?" Imogen asked, a little worried that their fake heir might cause a fuss if it started looking like he was going to lose his case. Then again, they could always have Greyback take care of him if he became troublesome...

"I've convinced him that there's at least a chance he'll win, but he's a realist," Warren replied. "Sebastien can hardly be anything but cynical, considering the kind of life he's led. I've paid him a hefty fee to pose as the heir, with the promise of more, even if he loses the lawsuit. At best, he'll become the Lord of the Snape estate, and at worst, he'll still walk away much richer than he started. Either way, he figures he has nothing to lose."

"What does he know about us?" Imogen asked.

"I used a disguise and haven't told him my real name, of course," Warren replied confidently. "As far as he's concerned, I'm just a rival of the Snape family who wants to see them brought down, and I've paid him enough that he won't ask any inconvenient questions."

"Great, you have a Snape heir," Greyback said impatiently. "So when can I kill Alden Madley? That was the whole point of breaking me out of the sanatorium, wasn't it, to have me eliminate your brother and his family?"

"The Abbott woman only whetted your appetite, eh?" Warren asked with a grin. "Don't worry, Greyback, you can go hunting again soon. Sebastien is in England, and he's contacted the lawyer that I recommended. Snape should be receiving notice of the lawsuit within the next day or two."

*** 

The very next day at lunch, an owl dropped off a thick envelope for Snape at the head table. As he opened it and read the papers inside, the puzzled look on his face rapidly changed to one of shock and anger.

"Severus?" Lupin asked anxiously. "What's wrong?"

"This is a notification from the Ministry that a Sebastien Delauney is challenging my claim to the Snape estate!" Snape snarled, flinging the papers down on the table.

"But I thought that you said you had no siblings or first cousins, and surely no one else would have a better claim than the son of the previous Lord," Lupin protested.

"This Delauney claims that his father was the illegitimate son of my grandfather, Stefan Snape," the Potions Master replied, then noticed that the other teachers were listening in on their conversation with unabashed interest. Except for Dumbledore, they all quickly glanced away when Snape glared at them.

"Is that true?" Lupin asked. "Did your grandfather have any illegitimate children?"

"How the bloody hell would I know, Lupin?!" Snape shouted. "He died before I was born!"

"It was--and I'm afraid to some extent still is--common for wealthy pureblood men to keep mistresses on the side," Dumbledore replied more calmly. "There was never any hint of scandal connected to Stefan that I know of, but it's possible that he could have covered up the birth of an illegitimate child, or that the mother kept the child's birth a secret and never told him about it."

"Or it could be some kind of trick," Snape said sourly. "An opportunist hoping to extort money from the Snape family, or someone who simply wants to cause trouble for me and my family. Unfortunately, I have so many enemies from both sides of the war that it's difficult to keep track of them all."

Just then, Selima's owl Socrates arrived with a terse note from his mistress, ordering Snape to report to the manor at once. "The day just keeps getting worse," Snape said morosely.

"Go ahead, Severus," Dumbledore said with a sympathetic smile. "I'll cancel your afternoon classes, and Remus's as well. Your mother knows a great deal about the history of the Snape family, so perhaps she might be able to shed some light on the matter."

"The last thing I want to do is talk to my mother when she's in a rage," Snape grumbled.

Lupin read the note Selima had sent, and said, "This says that she'll send a Howler to the school if you're not at Snape Manor within the hour." Snape groaned out loud, and Lupin couldn't help but smile in spite of the seriousness of the situation. "I guess we'll be going to Snape Manor, then."


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snape, Lupin, and Selima plan strategy against the rival heir; Tsubasa receives a surprise visitor, which leads to a misunderstanding with Ash.

Selima was pacing back and forth in the drawing room when Snape and Lupin arrived at the manor, while a worried-looking Vorcher huddled in a corner, wringing his hands. Snape noticed, with a touch of wry amusement, that the house-elf had chosen a corner on the far side of the room that was obscured by shadows, and he thought to himself that maybe Vorcher was smarter than he looked, because it was definitely wise to avoid attracting Lady Snape's attention when she was in a rage. He only wished that he was able to hide in a corner, too.

"This is a disaster, Severus!" Selima shouted at him as soon as she became of aware of his presence. She waved a copy of the Ministry notification papers accusingly in his face.

"Calm down, Mother," Snape said, trying to project an air of composure and unconcern, hoping that it would rub off on her. "If this is some pretender hoping to extort a little money from us, he will be exposed soon enough. Unless you have reason to believe that there is some validity to his claim?"

"I don't know whether it's valid or not!" Selima snapped, her eyes still filled with fury--and a touch of fear. "But when I was a girl, I heard stories of how the Delauney family family lost their fortune. The daughter became a courtesan at a brothel that catered to the pureblood elite, and it's possible, even likely, that Lord Stefan frequented the place."

"Then this Sebastien really might be a Snape?" Lupin asked, startled.

"I don't know!" Selima repeated, her voice sharpening with frustration. "It doesn't really matter whether he has Snape blood or not. What matters is whether he can convince the Wizengamot that he does and that he is a more fit heir than Severus!"

"Even if his father was Lord Stefan's son, doesn't a legitimate heir have legal precedence?" Lupin asked.

"Normally, yes," Selima replied, glaring at Snape. "However, since Severus has publicly made it clear that he will never take a wife and sire a child of his own blood, the court might rule in the challenger's favor. Theodore is related to the Snapes only indirectly, through one of the daughters, who normally don't inherit the title unless there are no male heirs available. It was acceptable for Severus to adopt him because there was no one else with a stronger blood tie, but Sebastien Delauney can make the case that he has more precedence than Theodore because he is directly descended from a Snape Lord only two generations back. 

"The laws of inheritance tend to favor direct descendants, and while Severus is the legitimate son of the previous Lord, Theodore is not his biological child. Also, thanks to that fiasco at the Yule Ball last year, most people are aware that Theodore has a male lover and is also unlikely to sire a child in the future. Providing that he can convince them that he really is Stefan's grandson, most purebloods would award the title to Sebastien if he pledges to marry and sire an heir."

"If he can convince them," Snape said pointedly. "That's a pretty big 'if'."

"Do you want to take that risk?" Selima demanded. "Delauney has nothing to lose, but we stand to lose everything--the title, all the monies and properties, the entire estate--if he wins his case! You know, this could all have been averted if you had done your duty as a proper heir!" She stopped mid-rant and frowned thoughtfully for a moment, then said, "You know, it's still not too late..."

"I told you that I won't take a wife!" Snape told his mother firmly. "Not even to keep the title out of Delauney's hands!"

"I know that, Severus," Selima replied impatiently. "But if you had a direct heir, even an illegitimate one, it would preserve the succession, and there would be no excuse for the Ministry to award the title to Sebastien. The Delauneys aren't the only pureblood family to have fallen on hard times, and it might be possible to make an arrangement with a woman from one of those families--"

"No!" Snape interrupted.

"You wouldn't have to marry her," Selima persisted. "It would strictly be a business proposition, and we would make that clear to the woman and her family from the start--an heir in return for financial compensation and a comfortable life."

"What about Theodore?" Snape shouted angrily. "Am I just supposed to cast him aside and tell him that I don't need him anymore?"

"Of course not!" Selima retorted. "He will still be your son, if not the heir to the title, and as long as you remain the Snape Lord, you can still provide an inheritance for him. But if you lose the title and the estate, there will be nothing left for him to inherit!"

"No," Snape said stubbornly. "I won't do it."

"Don't be so selfish, Severus!" Selima screamed shrilly. "Maybe you don't care about the estate, but think of Theodore! He's already given up his claim to the Nott estate, so he will have nothing if you lose the title! I will--"

She abruptly fell silent, pressing her lips together, but Snape realized what she had meant to say: "I will have nothing." Snape could get along fine without the title and the estate; he had been determined to support himself and live independently after his father had disinherited him, and although he would like to give Theodore an inheritance, he knew that his son would be able to survive without it. However, without the estate, Selima would be left with nothing, not even a place to live. 

If worse came to worst, Snape would provide for his mother, of course, but a Professor's salary could stretch only so far. She would have to move out of the mansion into a much smaller cottage or flat, and more importantly, she would lose all the power and influence that she possessed as the dowager Lady Snape. She would be ostracized and belittled by her former friends and allies, and for her, that would be worse than living in poverty. Moreover, she had no profession to keep her occupied if she should lose her status as Lady Snape. Ever since she had married Severin Snape at age eighteen, her entire life had revolved around running the affairs of the Snape family. No wonder she was so upset--losing the estate would mean losing her entire way of life.

Her old flame, Prospero Zabini, would gladly marry her and make her Lady Zabini if she wished, but she would still lose most of her power and influence, and besides, she was too proud to accept an offer of marriage under those circumstances. She was also too proud to beg her son for help, so she had phrased her arguments as concern over Theodore's welfare--and she probably was genuinely concerned about her grandson, but also equally concerned about her own welfare.

Snape smiled wryly, his anger dissipating. Even if she was only a Snape by marriage, not blood, Selima was the epitome of a true Snape: steadfastly stubborn and proud. No wonder his father had chosen her as his bride.

"Mother, let's not panic just yet," Snape placatingly, in a much less hostile voice. "If it becomes public knowledge that I am rushing around frantically trying to sire an heir, it would be seen as an admission that Delauney's claims are valid, thereby strengthening his case."

"You are correct," Selima reluctantly conceded, obviously fighting to control her temper and examine the situation rationally. In a way, Snape had to admire her ability to set aside her emotions and approach every problem with cold practicality--even one such as this, that affected her life so personally. "But neither can we risk losing the estate by doing nothing."

"It seems to me," Lupin said mildly, "that the first thing to do would be to determine just how valid this person's claim is. Severus mentioned once that the Snape family portraits are kept in the attic, and I assume there is one of Lord Stefan. Perhaps it could confirm whether Sebastien's father was really his son, or at least whether or not Philomela Delauney was actually his lover?"

"A good suggestion, Professor Lupin," Selima said in an approving, if slightly startled voice.

"You needn't sound so surprised, Mother," Snape said dryly. "The werewolf is able to come up with good ideas from time to time--despite the fact that he's a Gryffindor." Lupin just laughed, not taking offense at either Selima's implied insult or Snape's direct one.

They all trooped upstairs to the attic, where the Snape family portraits were confined. Snape and his father had not seen eye to eye on many things, but one thing they'd had in common was a low tolerance for outspoken, meddling portraits of dead relatives. Severin had locked them all up in the attic after hearing one too many pieces of unwanted advice.

Sheets and drapes covered the various portraits, and the faint, rumbling sound of snoring could be heard beneath them. Selima pulled the drapes back from one of the portraits, revealing the likeness of a slumbering Stefan Snape, a man with iron-gray hair and the large, hooked nose that was the distinguishing feature of the Snape family. "Lord Stefan," she said softly, and when he continued to snore, she repeated a little louder, "Lord Stefan!"

"Eh, what?" the portrait asked, blinking and looking around disorientedly as he woke. After a few moments, his eyes focused on Selima, and he said vaguely, "You're the Bashir girl, aren't you? Severin's bride?"

"Yes, Lord Stefan," Selima replied, curtseying politely to the portrait. "I am Selima, formerly of the Bashir clan, Severin's wife."

"And no longer a girl, I see," Stefan said, his eyes growing more alert as he examined Selima more closely, then turned his gaze to Snape and Lupin. "Hair too dark to be Severin's...I assume this is my grandson?"

"Yes, your grandson Severus," Selima confirmed, and Snape nodded curtly at the portrait.

"And the other?" Stefan asked. "He doesn't have the look of a Snape about him."

Selima hesitated for a moment, then replied, "This is Professor Lupin, Severus's colleague and friend."

"Colleague?" Stefan asked, looking confused.

"Yes, Severus and I are both teachers at Hogwarts," Lupin explained cheerfully.

"Hmph!" Stefan snorted, frowning at Snape disapprovingly. "You weren't able to obtain a Ministry position, then?"

"Let us say that I was not cut out for a life in politics, Grandfather," Snape said with a touch of sarcastic humor.

"Hmph!" Stefan snorted again, then turned back to Selima. "What do you want from me? I assume that you didn't wake me after years of being locked up in the attic just to chat about the weather. And where is my son? If he wants a favor from me, Severin could at least have the courtesy to talk to me face to face."

There was a brief, awkward silence, and it was Lupin who gently told the portrait, "I'm very sorry to have to tell you that Lord Severin passed away last year, after a long illness."

"Oh," Stefan said, looking somewhat shaken, if not exactly grief-stricken, and his gaze turned back to Snape. "Then you are..."

"I am now the Lord of the Snape family," Snape said.

"For now," Selima pointedly added, then explained about Sebastien Delauney's lawsuit.

"Oh my," Stefan said, looking shocked. "Philomela's grandson?"

"Then Philomela Delauney really was your mistress," Selima said with uncharacteristic bluntness, but Snape could tell that she had nearly reached her limit on patience.

"I was one of Philomela's clients," Stefan admitted, looking a bit nostalgic. "She was a lovely girl with golden hair, and quite talented, too..."

"I'm sure she was," Selima said in an acid voice.

"I meant in music," Stefan clarified. "She had a voice like a nightingale. Although she was also talented in the, ah, womanly arts."

"I don't care about that!" Selima snapped. "All I want to know is whether or not she bore you a bastard son!"

"Not to my knowledge," Stefan replied defensively. "As I said, I was one of her clients, but the women at the brothel were all supposed to be using birth control charms. I had no reason to think otherwise, and Philomela never mentioned anything about being pregnant, and never asked me to acknowledge a child, either officially or unofficially." 

He frowned. "Although I heard that there was some sort of scandal, after I fell ill and had not visited the brothel for a few weeks--something about Philomela running off to France with the Parkinson boy. He was infatuated with her, you know, and jealous of all her other clients. Perhaps the child was his."

"We'll look into it," Selima said, sounding a little relieved that they had a possible defense against Delauney's claims. "Contact Morrigan De Lacy, Severus, and have her investigate."

"Yes, Mother."

"Still, this is bad," Selima said, giving the portrait an accusing look. "Since you were one of Philomela's clients, there's a possibility that you could have been the father of her child, at least in the eyes of the Ministry. We'll need the names of her other clients, the more the better, so that we can prove that one of them is the father, or at least insinuate that there was no way that Philomela could possibly have known whom the real father of her baby was."

"I don't understand why you're so concerned," Stefan protested. "Of course a scandal like this causes problems for the Snape family, but even if this Sebastien is my grandson, there is no reason for the Ministry to award the title to a bastard over the legitimate heir." He gave Snape a suspicious look. "Is there?"

"Severus is unable to sire an heir of his body," Selima said, shooting a quick glare Snape's way that plainly said he had better not contradict her story. "So he adopted an orphaned boy from the Nott family, one of his students at Hogwarts. Theodore can claim a Snape woman as his ancestress a few generations back, and he is an intelligent and capable young wizard of good breeding--a very fine heir. However, Sebastien Delauney will claim that his right to the title is greater than that of Severus's chosen heir because of the closer blood connection."

"Unable to sire an heir?" Stefan asked suspiciously. "Are you sure? Is it something that the Healers at St. Mungo's have confirmed, or do you only assume it because his wife has borne him no children? Breaking a marriage alliance is never something to be taken lightly, but the future of the clan is more important, and a barren wife may lawfully be set aside. By the way, who is Severus's wife?"

There was a brief silence as Selima, Snape, and Lupin all looked at each other, not sure how to reply. Selima recovered first and hastily answered, "Severus isn't married at the moment. He was...tragically widowed several years ago. His late wife was a girl from the Black family. And yes, we have confirmed that Severus is unable to sire a child."

Snape had to admire his mother's ability to lie through her teeth without batting an eyelash, but Stefan must have picked up on that brief moment of hesitation, or perhaps Selima's reply sounded a little too pat to him. But either way, he frowned and his eyes narrowed shrewdly as they suddenly focused on Lupin. 

"Why is the Professor here?" he demanded. "It is not fitting for an outsider, even one who is a friend of the Lord, to be involved in such a personal affair of the Snape family." 

Even Selima couldn't think fast enough to come up with a good excuse for that question, although from the look of concentration on her face and a hint of franticness in her eyes, she was trying very hard to think of something. Meanwhile, Lupin gave Snape an apologetic and slightly amused smile, and although he didn't say a word, it was enough to cause Stefan to shout accusingly, "Is this man the reason why you have no wife, Severus? Is he the reason why you are 'unable' to sire a proper heir?"

"It doesn't matter," Snape said curtly, moving a step closer to Lupin. "What matters is stopping this pretender from taking over the Snape estate--providing that you want the Snape line to continue, that is. Personally, it doesn't really matter all that much to me."

"Severus!" his mother cried reprovingly.

"Well, maybe I would rather hand the inheritance over to a bastard grandson than to a lover of men!" Stefan shouted.

"And maybe I am not particularly interested in the opinion of a piece of enchanted canvas," Snape retorted coolly.

Stefan's face turned red with fury, and he began shouting about how Snape was a disgrace to the family, his insults growing increasingly vitriolic and incoherent until Selima finally cast a spell that sent the portrait back to sleep.

"Well, your grandfather is--or was--a very sharp man," Lupin told Snape in an almost admiring voice. "He was pretty quick to pick up on the relationship between us."

"Did you have to provoke him like that?" Selima scolded her son. "Now we won't be able to get any useful information out of him!"

"It wasn't like I told him about myself and Lupin," Snape protested. "He guessed it on his own."

"Well, you could have denied it," Selima said crossly. When Snape opened his mouth to defend himself, she sighed irritably and said, "Oh, never mind! There's no point in crying over spilt milk. Go contact Morrigan and formally retain her services so that we can start planning our defense. Have her investigate this Sebastien Delauney, and I will use my own contacts to see if I can learn more about Philomela and her clients." 

"Yes, Mother," Snape replied meekly, and gratefully fled the attic. He used the communication mirror in the study to contact Morrigan, who had already heard about the lawsuit, because she seemed to be expecting his call, and told him to Floo over to her office.

As he and Lupin stepped out of the fireplace, he was a little surprised to see Hermione Granger in Morrigan's office, filing some paperwork. Her main apprenticeship was with the Apothecary, Mr. Jigger, but it seemed that she was also holding to her resolution to work a second apprenticeship with Morrigan so that she could someday fight for house-elf rights as a lawyer.

"Hello, Professors," she said, an earnest and concerned look on her face. "It's terrible about the lawsuit, but I'm sure that Ms. De Lacy will win the case for you."

"Miss Granger has great faith in my abilities," Morrigan said with a smile. She was an elegantly beautiful young woman with reddish-blonde hair twisted up in a neat knot at the back of her head, and she was dressed in expensive but conservatively cut wine-colored robes. Her beauty sometimes caused her opponents to underestimate her, but as her former Head of House, Snape knew that she was as ruthless and predatory as any Slytherin. He was just glad that she was on his side, because he wouldn't want her for an enemy.

"I have great faith in your record," Granger said firmly. "You've won more cases than anyone else in the firm."

"Then we've come to the right person," Lupin chuckled, and then Snape went over the details of the case with Morrigan while Granger listened with avid interest.

"In the Muggle world, a D.N.A. test could prove whether this man really is a Snape," Granger said.

"A what?" Snape asked irritably. The girl tried to explain, but it all sounded like gibberish to him. Then again, a spell incantation would probably sound like gibberish to a Muggle. "Never mind," he interrupted, with an impatient wave of his hand. "Even if this test is accurate, the Ministry would never allow it as evidence."

"Most wizards, especially the purebloods, regard Muggle science and technology with suspicion and skepticism," Morrigan explained.

"Well, is there some sort of magical test that does the same thing?" Granger asked.

"Unfortunately, no," Morrigan said regretfully. "It certainly would simplify matters a great deal if there were."

"But then how will the court decide whether or not Sebastien Delauney's claim is legitimate or not?" Granger asked.

"Witness testimony," Morrigan replied. "A physical resemblance to his alleged grandfather would help." She smiled cynically. "It would also depend on how many Ministry officials he can afford to bribe, and how many of those officials dislike Severus and would like to see him humiliated."

"That's terrible!" Granger said indignantly.

"Surely by now, Miss Granger, you must have figured out how the Ministry works," Snape said impatiently. "It has less to do with concepts such as 'fairness' and 'justice' than with self-interest and political expediency."

"I know," Granger sighed, "but I thought that Mr. Weasley was trying to root out the corruption."

"He is, but it is not a task that can be accomplished overnight," Morrigan replied solemnly. "In the meantime, we must take that corruption into consideration if we wish to win our case. To be idealistic is a fine thing, Hermione, as long as you are also realistic."

"I suppose you're right," Granger reluctantly acknowledged. "So what's our strategy?"

"'Our' strategy?" Snape asked pointedly, and Lupin chuckled again.

"Miss Granger is proving to be a most able assistant, Severus," Morrigan said, with a faint glint of laughter in her green eyes, and Snape sighed in resignation.

"Well, the first step of 'our' strategy," Snape said sarcastically, "must be to gather information. We simply don't have enough information about this Delauney to know if his claim is legitimate, or what his motives might be. From the conversation with my grandfather's portrait, it seems that there's at least a small chance that he could be a Snape, but it's equally likely that any of Philomela's clients could have been his grandfather."

"I'll send messages to my contacts in France and try to find out more about him and his motives," Morrigan said, frowning. "It's a long shot for a whore's grandson to try to supplant a legitimate Lord, even one as controversial as you, Severus. He may simply be hoping for you to buy him off with a bribe, or one of your enemies could be manipulating him. He's hired a lawyer from Warrington and Bole, one of our firm's rivals, and they don't come cheap. It makes me wonder if he can afford the fee on his own, or if someone is bankrolling him."

"I hadn't stopped to consider that," Snape said, feeling rather chagrined, although he'd had little time to think since receiving the letter from the Ministry. "And the timing is rather convenient, with the lawsuit being filed while we're still dealing with that whole mess about the alleged werewolf murders. If Delauney has a legitimate claim, why hasn't he filed it before now? For that matter, why did his father never try to enter a claim for the Snape title? I was disowned for many years, and my father might have been willing to adopt a bastard brother or nephew as his heir, out of sheer desperation."

"Perhaps the war kept them away?" Lupin guessed. "They might have thought that it was not safe to travel to England while Voldemort and the Death Eaters were at large."

"But the war has been over for more than a year," Snape said, frowning. "So why wait that long?"

"Probably because he now has the financial, and possibly the political backing of a wealthy patron," Morrigan replied. "If the latter is true, his backer will eventually show his hand, but in the meantime, I will do my best to discover his identity."

"Maybe the murders have nothing to do with Ash Randolf, after all!" Granger exclaimed excitedly. "Maybe it's an indirect way to discredit the Professor! Everyone knows that he has a werewolf lover, and if people become convinced that werewolves are dangerous monsters, the Ministry will be more likely to award the title to Delauney!"

"It's possible," Morrigan agreed. "Although if that were the case, I would have expected the victims to be enemies of Remus."

"Lupin is so good-natured that he has no enemies," Snape said disgustedly, and they all laughed in spite of their worries.

"Everyone has enemies," Morrigan said. "Or at least, there are probably people who regard Remus as an enemy, even if he bears no ill will against them. Mr. Dawlish, for example, although I imagine that a housewife is easier to murder than an Auror. But we should take Hermione's suggestion seriously. Regardless of whether or not Remus was the intended target, Severus is bound to be distracted by a threat against werewolves in general, and less able to focus on the lawsuit. That could well be the murderer's intention."

"Or more likely, the intention of the person manipulating the murderer," Snape said. "I doubt that Delauney's patron is the type to get his own hands dirty, and besides, he's not likely to be a werewolf. But I see your point, Morrigan."

"I think that you will have to leave the investigation of the murders up to the Aurors, since most of your time will be taken up with preparing for the trial," Morrigan said. "But at least Shacklebolt and Tonks seem competent and motivated to find the real killer. I will share our theory with them, and keep them informed of any pertinent information that we learn--with your permission, of course, Severus."

"Yes, of course," Snape said, nodding in agreement. "You're representing Randolf as well, aren't you?"

"Yes, although he hasn't been formally charged with the murders, so I haven't needed to do much," Morrigan replied. "But Lukas thought that having a lawyer on retainer might keep Dawlish from being overzealous in his investigation." She smiled. "In a way, it would be convenient if the two cases were related, because then I could resolve both of them at once."

"Do you have any idea who might be behind this, Professor?" Granger asked Snape.

"I have more enemies than I can count," Snape replied wearily. "The Death Eaters and their families, of course, regard me as a traitor. And also their sympathizers, such as the Parkinsons, who supported the Death Eaters and now find their fortunes declining along with that of their allies. There was some recent unpleasantness with Warren Macnair; I ran into him a few weeks ago, and we exchanged a few harsh words. He and his sister were under surveillance by the Aurors--a fact for which they apparently blame me. But they, along with the other Death Eater and sympathizer families, seem to be lying low, waiting for the scandal to die down with time. 

"Of course, one of them could be acting as Delauney's secret backer behind the scenes, and I've no doubt that they would like to see me humiliated by having the title stripped from me. And as an added bonus, the new Snape Lord would be indebted to them. However, the chances of getting the grandson of a prostitute appointed head of a pureblood family are rather slim, and I'm not sure that they would go to this much effort for such a longshot. They certainly wouldn't commit murder for it, not unless they have some kind of definite proof that Delauney is really a Snape.

"And of course the opposite side hates me as well," Snape continued with a cynical smile. "They think that I turned spy only to save my own skin. And I'm sure that Ian Williamson and Amos Diggory have friends at the Ministry who think that I ought to be in Azkaban right now instead of them."

"This does sound similar to the kinds of the things that Williamson and the R.A. were doing," Granger said thoughtfully. "Attacking you and the werewolves indirectly through suspicion and manipulation instead of confronting you directly. That's pretty cowardly, in my opinion."

"Cowardly, perhaps, but clever," Snape said sourly. "There's less chance for the culprit to be discovered that way. That, along with the murders, has me leaning towards the likelihood that my unnamed enemy is connected to the Death Eaters."

"Williamson was capable of murder, or at least attempted murder," Lupin reminded him.

"Yes, but it's one thing to kill a werewolf, a creature that many wizards regard as less than human," Snape replied. "It's quite another to kill an innocent housewife in cold blood just to throw suspicion on your enemy. Some of the Aurors have a reputation for ruthlessness, but I'm not sure that even Williamson's cronies would go that far. Of course, that's assuming that my inheritance problems really are connected to the murders, which they might not be."

"Still, we have to act as though they are, until we learn otherwise," Morrigan insisted. "It would be dangerous to be complacent."

"That's true," Snape agreed. "By the way, Morrigan, if allies of the werewolves are being targeted, for whatever reason, you do realize that puts you and Miss Granger at risk as well?"

"I'm not afraid of the Death Eaters or Williamson's cronies!" Granger said defiantly, a look of stubborn determination flaring in her eyes. 

"A certain amount of fear is not a bad thing, Miss Granger," Snape said sardonically. "It is a self-defense mechanism, after all--although it doesn't seem to function properly in Gryffindors."

"Well, of course I'm aware of the danger," Granger replied, still looking stubborn and defiant. "But I'm not going to let fear keep me from doing my job or helping my friends. And I won't let anyone--either Death Eater or Auror--bully me and dictate my actions."

"Well said, Hermione," Morrigan said approvingly, then turned to Snape. "She speaks for both of us, Severus."

Snape had expected as much, but he had thought it only fair to warn them. He was a little embarrassed by Granger's declaration, though. He hoped that by "friends" she meant Lupin and the werewolves, but he was afraid to ask for fear that she might confirm that he was included in that statement. 

_Dylan could have had any girl at Hogwarts, but no, he had to choose a know-it-all Gryffindor wench,_ he grumbled to himself. Still, he supposed a know-it-all was better than one of those empty-headed girls like Parvati Patil or Yvonne Deveraux, who seemed to think of nothing but clothes and boys. And Miss Granger at least had a little more common sense than most Gryffindors, although that wasn't necessarily saying much.

Morrigan's friendship was easier to accept, because although it was genuine, it was also tempered with a bit of Slytherin self-interest. She wouldn't take the side of his enemies, but she wasn't the type to do pro bono work, either, and she expected to be handsomely compensated for her services as his lawyer. Snape didn't mind; she was well worth her substantial fee, and as the Snape Lord, he could easily afford it. Besides, pure altruism made him nervous, and he was much more comfortable with the concept of a mutually beneficial alliance.

One corner of Snape's mouth quirked up in an ironic smile. Actually, he was the one who had willingly joined the Order as a spy--the type of thing a Gryffindor would do. In spite of her hatred for the Death Eaters, Morrigan would never have done something so foolish and self-sacrificing.

"Does something amuse you, Severus?" Lupin asked, giving him a knowing smile, as if he could guess what Snape was thinking. Sometimes he thought that the damned werewolf was a Legilimens, for all that Lupin denied it.

"Not at all, Lupin," Snape replied coolly, but he noticed that his lover kept smiling at him. "It is hardly an amusing situation, after all."

"Oh, of course not," Lupin said, an expression of innocent concern on his face. Snape gave him an annoyed look, and Granger stifled a giggle. Morrigan had better control, and kept her face politely neutral, although he suspected that she was probably laughing silently. Still, as long as she wasn't doing it outwardly, he could at least ignore it and salvage his pride.

"Please conduct your investigation, Morrigan, and keep me informed," Snape said, his voice still cool and impassive. "And of course I shall let you know what my mother learns about Philomela's clients."

Morrigan said with a smile, "I have no doubt that Lady Selima's investigation shall prove fruitful," which was an understatement, as Snape knew from experience. His mother could give interrogation tips to the Aurors, and in the unlikely event that intimidation did not work, she was equally adept at worming information out of people by more subtle means, such as guile and flattery--or by enlisting the aid of ally. Selima had despised Lupin when they had first met, but that hadn't stopped her from recruiting him as an ally in her quest to convince Snape to return home and resume his duties as heir.

"No doubt," Snape agreed in a dry voice, and he and Lupin returned to Hogwarts. There was nothing for them to do now but wait, which was extremely unsatisfying, but one thing that his many years of working as a spy had taught him was patience.

*** 

Ash had not returned to Hogwarts since Tsubasa had told to him to leave and not come back, and he wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed that the werewolf had obeyed him.

And his quarrel with Ash had strained his relationship with Lukas--an especially awkward situation, since they shared duties for the Physical Defense classes and were required to work closely with each other. Apparently Ash was miserable, moody, and drinking too much, and although he refused to say why, Lukas correctly guessed that Tsubasa was the reason behind it. 

"This is between Ash and myself," Tsubasa politely but firmly told the werewolf leader. Lukas just growled in response, sounding angry and frustrated. Intellectually, he probably knew that Ash was partly to blame for whatever trouble lay between them, but his wolf instincts were telling him to protect the man that he regarded not only as a friend and a packmate, but as his "cub". 

Tsubasa, of all people, could understand animal instinct, so he relented and said, "It's not that I don't care about Ash, Lukas. But I don't think that he's ready to be in a relationship right now. He can't make up his mind whether he wants me to be a friend, a casual lover, or a lifemate--and I'm not capable of being all three to him. He has to choose." Although Tsubasa didn't mention it to Lukas, "casual lover" was not going to be a viable option. He thought he could, with a great deal of effort, manage a platonic friendship, but he didn't think that he would be able to keep things "casual" if he continued sleeping with Ash.

Lukas sighed, the anger in his face draining away to be replaced by a look of concern. "Please be patient with him. He's had a very difficult life."

"I know," Tsubasa replied. "He told me about his childhood."

"It's a sign that he trusts you," Lukas said hopefully. "He's never spoken to an outsider about it before, and not even to any of the pack except for me."

"I understand what a great gift of trust it is," Tsubasa said quietly. "And I'm trying to be patient. It's just..." He sighed. "It's difficult." Especially when both parties had inconvenient animal instincts that overrode their common sense.

"If it's any comfort to you," Lukas said with a wry smile, "Narcissa and I nearly killed each other before we got together."

It wasn't much comfort, but their talk did ease the strain between them somewhat, although Lukas continued to worry about Ash. He was also nervous about the upcoming birth of his baby, and concerned about how the political fallout from the murders would affect the rest of his pack, so it wasn't really surprising that the werewolf leader was a bit short-tempered.

Actually, there was an air of tension hanging over the entire school, and Lukas wasn't the only one who was short-tempered these days. Everyone was worried about the murders, of course, and Professor Snape was being sued by a man who claimed to be the rightful Snape heir. The Potions Master was more snappish than usual with his fellow teachers, but it was the students who bore the brunt of his temper--he had given out a record number of detentions in the past few days, or so Dumbledore claimed.

Tsubasa felt a little sorry for Snape, and even sorrier for the students, but he didn't have much spare time or energy to worry about other people's problems, because he was afraid that another murder would occur on the next full moon, which was only a week away. That would fit the pattern, if the murderer was trying to rouse fear and suspicion of the werewolves in general or Ash in particular. 

The tengu never went anywhere unarmed, and Tsubasa had gotten into the habit of doing the same. However, England was currently at peace, and in any case, the British wizards rarely carried any weapon other than a wand. So in order to fit in better in his new home, he had stopped wearing his swords after coming to Hogwarts, but now the whole situation had him so on edge that he had started wearing them again. It wasn't as if he was expecting to be attacked while at school, or even on his occasional trips to Hogsmeade and London, but somehow it made him feel better to be armed, even though his main problem--namely, his relationship with Ash--could not be solved with a sword.

All of this was why he felt restless and irritable on a Saturday morning, without any classes to keep him occupied. He graded papers for awhile, but had trouble concentrating, and gave it up after about an hour. Out of all his fellow teachers, he was friendliest with Lukas and Remus, but Lukas didn't live at the school and was currently at home, no doubt fussing over his pregnant wife; he was exceedingly proud and nervous about becoming a father. 

Under normal circumstances, Tsubasa might have sought out Remus for a game of chess or a chat over tea, but he had gone with Snape to confer with their lawyer about the upcoming trial, and besides, he was probably too worried and distracted to be interested in such trivial pastimes right now.

He couldn't go to London and visit the werewolves because he might run into Ash, and he couldn't visit his aunt and uncle at the Sakura, because they would probably ask him about Ash. For the same reason, he couldn't visit Takeshi and Aric, although a sparring match with Aric would have worked off some of his irritability.

He heaved a sigh, feeling rather disgruntled and more than a little sorry for himself, and he vacillated, trying to decide whether to stay in his room and brood, or try to distract himself by going out for a solitary walk. Or perhaps he should go to the Muggle part of London and catch a movie instead...

A timid knock on the door, barely more than a tap, startled him out of his self-pity and he called out, "Come in," without bothering to ask who it was. At this point, any distraction would be welcome.

The door opened and a house-elf--easily recognizable by his clothing as Dobby--peered into the room and said, "Please excuse Dobby for interrupting, but the Headmaster wishes to see Professor Tsubasa in his office. The Headmaster's office, that is, not Professor Tsubasa's."

"Thank you, Dobby," Tsubasa said politely, and headed to Dumbledore's office, his curiosity piqued. For security reasons--or at least he assumed that was the reason--the Headmaster's office was not normally connected to the Floo Network, and required a password to enter. The staff members had all been given the current password, but Remus had told Tsubasa that the Headmaster had the power to change it at any time to lock out intruders, such as the time that the Ministry's lackey, Umbridge, had taken over the school.

"Peppermint Humbug," he said, feeling a little silly, and the gargoyle statue that guarded the entrance leapt aside, and the wall split open to reveal a spiral staircase. As soon as he stepped on it, the staircase began to move, carrying him up to the office like an escalator. It moved rather slowly, though, giving him time to wonder why the Headmaster wanted to see him.

The staircase deposited him in front of the office, and Tsubasa paused for a moment outside the door. He could hear the murmur of voices, but could not make out the actual words though the thick oak door, so he shrugged and rapped the brass Griffin-shaped knocker to announce his presence.

"Come in," Dumbledore said, so Tsubasa entered the office. Sitting in a chair in front of the Headmaster's desk was a Japanese woman clad in casual Muggle clothing: sweater, jeans, and leather jacket. From a distance, she could have passed for one of the students, or at least a recent graduate, but upon closer inspection, one could see that there were faint lines visible at the corners of her eyes and mouth, and a few strands of gray were threaded through her shoulder-length black hair. She lacked the supernatural grace and beauty of the crane folk, but Tsubasa thought that she was quite pretty, with a warm and ready smile. However, he was hardly a biased observer, because he had adored her ever since he was five years old.

"Hi, sweetie!" his stepmother exclaimed cheerfully as she jumped up from her seat to give him a hug and a kiss.

"M-Mom?" Tsubasa stuttered in shock. "What are you doing here?"

"Now is that any way to greet your mother?" Reiko asked, frowning at him with a look of mock-reproach. "I've come to visit my favorite son, of course."

"I'm your only son," Tsubasa reminded her. His father and stepmother had been unable to have children of their own, which was not really surprising. The crane folk were a long-lived race, and their birth rate was correspondingly low; pureblooded crane couples rarely had more than one child, although the part-human crossbreeds were a little more prolific. 

But Reiko had never complained or shown any sign of disappointment that Tsubasa could see, and she had never treated him as anything less than her own flesh and blood. "You are the only son I need," she had tenderly reassured him, when as a child he had asked if she was sad that she couldn't have a baby of her own, and it was one more reason why he loved her so much.

"All the more reason for you to be my favorite, then," Reiko replied blithely, and the Headmaster chuckled. An almost conspiratorial look seemed to pass between them, and Tsubasa suddenly began to worry about what they had been discussing before he had walked in--himself, no doubt, which worried him all the more.

"It's a weekend, so why don't you take your mother out and show her the sights?" Dumbledore suggested. "Take a walk to Hogsmeade, perhaps, or if you like, you can borrow one of the school carriages and fly to London."

"Oh, let's take a walk," Reiko said. "I could use the exercise, and I would very much like to see Hogsmeade. From your letters, it sounds like quite an intriguing place." She smiled impishly. "I especially want to see Honeydukes and Zonko's."

"You're not going to buy any Dungbombs to throw at Lord Kazuhiko, are you?" Tsubasa asked wryly.

His stepmother giggled wickedly, in a way that boded ill for the stuffy crane elder, and then she smoothed her features into a look of cool dignity. "Why, of course not, dear," she replied indignantly. "That would be highly inappropriate and disrespectful."

"I cannot imagine Madam Reiko as being anything but respectful," Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eyes.

"That's because you never spoke with any of her teachers at Salem," Tsubasa muttered under his breath, but fell silent when his stepmother elbowed him in the side. Many of his teachers at Salem had been there long enough to remember Reiko as a bright but mischievous young student who had earned more than a few detentions for being involved with some prank, or for being a little too outspoken--in other words, disrespectful--with her teachers. If she had gone to Hogwarts, she would probably have been a Gryffindor, Tsubasa thought to himself with a little smile of amusement.

"Well, come along, dear," Reiko said briskly, taking him by the arm.

"Yes, Mom," Tsubasa replied meekly, and the Headmaster cheerily said, "Have a good time!" as they left the office.

It was a nice day for a walk; the air was cool but not too cold, and the sky was slightly overcast, but at least it wasn't raining, so they didn't have to slosh through muddy puddles.

"It's nice to wear Muggle clothing for a change," Reiko sighed happily as they walked arm-in-arm down the path to Hogsmeade. "Not that I don't love the kimonos that your father weaves for me, but there's just something comfortable about wearing jeans. You don't have to worry about walking daintily or getting the silk dirty."

"Speaking of Dad, did he come with you?" Tsubasa asked apprehensively.

"Oh no, he's in Tokyo attending a Wizards' Council meeting," Reiko replied casually. "So I thought I'd come visit you instead of sitting around at home being bored."

"I see," Tsubasa said, trying not to sound too relieved. He loved his father, of course, but dealing with one concerned parent was going to be hard enough, and he suspected that boredom wasn't the only reason why his stepmother had come to visit him.

But for the moment, Reiko seemed content to play tourist, allowing Tsubasa to point out the lake and the train station on their way to the village, and then browsing in the shops when they got to Hogsmeade.

"I can see why the students love this place," Reiko said, looking impressed as she gazed at the candy displays in Honeydukes, and then proceeded to buy enough candy to fill a large shopping bag. 

Tsubasa groaned, pretending to have to strain to lift the bag as they left the shop. "You'll be as round as a tanuki if you eat all this, Mom," he teased.

"It's not all for me, silly," Reiko said, playfully swatting him on the arm. "I'm buying souvenirs to take back home. Although I do intend to save some of the fudge for myself."

She bought more "souvenirs" in Zonko's--no Dungbombs, but some Hiccup Sweets and Frog Spawn Soap. "For the children," she said sweetly.

"Of course," Tsubasa agreed, a bit skeptically, having visions of frogs hopping all over an outraged Kazuhiko's bathroom. He decided that he'd better keep her away from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes if they ever went to Diagon Alley, although the thought of Kazuhiko turning into a giant canary was extremely amusing.

"Ooh, look at that!" Reiko exclaimed, tugging on his arm as she hurried down the street. They paused in front of the display window of Gladrags Wizardwear, and Reiko sighed dreamily as she gazed at a woman's formal dress robe made of midnight-blue velvet, so dark that it was almost black, embroidered all over with hundreds of tiny clear crystals that shimmered in the light of the small lanterns that had been strategically placed in the window.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Reiko sighed.

"It is," Tsubasa replied honestly. The robe looked like it had been sewn out of a piece of the night sky, and both the cloth and the workmanship appeared to be of good quality. Two young women in the shop--apprentices by the look of them--looked towards them with hopeful smiles when they saw a potential customer gazing at the display.

"Why don't you try it on?" Tsubasa suggested. "If you like it, I'll buy it for you as a souvenir of your trip to Britain."

"Oh, that's all right, sweetie," his stepmother laughed. "It's lovely, but it looks hideously expensive, and there aren't many occasions where I'd have a chance to wear it. I'm expected to wear a kimono to formal clan gatherings, and all joking aside, I don't want to offend the elders too much."

"Are you sure?" Tsubasa asked. "It's all right to indulge in a frivolous luxury once in awhile."

"You're very sweet, but I think I can manage to live without a new robe," Reiko said, kissing him on the cheek. "Why don't you buy me a cup of tea instead? Is there someplace quiet where we could sit down and have a nice chat?"

This was the moment he'd been dreading, but there was no point in trying to escape it; his stepmother was a stubborn woman, and any attempts to put her off or evade her would only make her even more determined. 

"The Three Broomsticks is a little noisy," Tsubasa said, resigning himself to a mother-son chat about his personal life. "How about Madam Puddifoot's? It should be quiet around this time of morning." He had been told that the tea shop was a popular meeting spot for trysting couples, and that it was busiest during Hogsmeade days. The students were all in school right now, and while some romantically inclined young adults did frequent the shop, it was a little too early for most couples to be out on a lunch date.

"That sounds delightful," Reiko said cheerfully, and Tsubasa gave the disappointed apprentice girls an apologetic smile before turning away and leading his stepmother to Puddifoot's. He resolved to go back later and buy the robe for Reiko, even if it was expensive and impractical. Despite her protests, she'd been sighing over it like a starry-eyed schoolgirl, and surely she deserved a few luxuries, after everything she'd done for him and his father, and besides, Christmas was only a few months away. Maybe she could wear it to the Yule Ball, if the Headmaster decided to have one. If not, then he'd throw a party himself if necessary, just so she'd have someplace to wear the robe to.

As he'd predicted, the tea shop was empty. The decorations--all frills and bows--were a bit on the tacky side, but Tsubasa supposed that it must appeal to teenage girls. "It's very...quaint," Reiko said dubiously.

"Quaint, but quiet," Tsubasa said with a smile, and Madam Puddifoot herself appeared to take their order. He ordered a pot of tea and a plate of assorted pastries, which turned out to be surprisingly good--he had been afraid that they would taste the way that the decorations looked, all sickly saccharine-sweet.

They made small talk for a few minutes, sipping their tea and munching on their pastries, and finally Reiko asked, a little too casually, "And how is your wolf friend?"

"Ash is just fine, Mother dear," Tsubasa replied, careful to keep his tone of voice light and unconcerned.

He needn't have bothered. "Oh?" Reiko said, raising her eyebrows. "You have an odd definition of 'fine,' Tsubasa. Personally, I wouldn't call being the prime suspect in two murders 'fine'. Especially if one of the murder victims happened to be my friend's mother."

"Aunt Haruko told you about the murders," Tsubasa said accusingly. "Or was it Takeshi?"

"It was neither one," Reiko replied impatiently. "Did you know that there's a specialty bookstore in Tokyo where you can order a subscription to any wizarding newspaper in the world? When you took the job at Hogwarts, I bought a subscription to the Daily Prophet so that I could keep up with the British wizarding news." She gave her stepson a stern look. "When you very assiduously avoided any mention of the murders in your letters, I decided to come in person to see for myself what was wrong."

"Nothing's wrong, Mom!" Tsubasa protested. "I just didn't want to worry you and Dad. I'm sure that the Aurors will catch the killer soon."

"If you really believed that, you wouldn't be wearing your swords for a quick stroll to the tea shop," Reiko retorted, staring pointedly at his weapons.

"It's just habit, Mom," Tsubasa protested unconvincingly. "Like Kazuhiko always says, I've been living with the tengu too long."

"I don't believe that," Reiko said. "But I'm not here just because of the murders. The tone of your letters bothered me...your father didn't notice, but there was just a little too much forced cheer in them." She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a hard, implacable glare. "Just what is going on between you and this werewolf? And don't give me that 'we're just friends' line!"

Tsubasa caved immediately; even a hardened warrior knew when to admit defeat. Noticing Madam Puddifoot gazing at them curiously from across the room, he switched from English to Japanese and told Reiko everything about himself and Ash and the complications that had resulted from Ash's chance meeting with Laura Madley, and his doubts that Ash wanted him for himself and not just because of his resemblance to Takeshi. He even told her about his recent encounter with Ash in the Physical Defense classroom, although he glossed over the more explicit details. But he confessed his overwhelming desire for the werewolf, and his confusion about whether it was lust or love.

"Only you can decide that, sweetie," Reiko said, reaching across the table to clasp his hand comfortingly. "But it sounds to me like you care a lot about Ash, if you've been worrying about him this much."

"I don't know if I can love him," Tsubasa said despairingly. "And even if I can, I don't know if he's capable of loving me. I'm not sure if he's capable of loving anyone."

"It sounds like your friend comes with a lot of baggage," Reiko said gently. "But everyone does, to some extent. When I graduated from Salem, I certainly didn't intend to fall in love with an older widower who already had a young son. There were times when I wasn't sure if Yokuto would ever be able to get over his grief for your mother enough to love someone else. But I have never regretted marrying him, not even for a moment."

"You have a generous spirit, Mom," Tsubasa said, managing a faint but genuine smile. "You're willing to share Dad with the memory of my mother. I'm a little more selfish. If Ash is going to be my mate, I don't want to share him with anyone."

"That's your crane blood speaking," his stepmother said, smiling at him fondly. "But seriously, Tsubasa, no one person ever belongs solely to another, in spite of all the romantic crane notions about lifemates and two souls becoming one. Yes, it's true that cranes mate for life, but a part of your father will always belong to the crane clan, for all that he rebels against them, just as a part of me will always belong to my family in America, no matter how much I love your father. 

"If you are going to love Ash, you must accept that you will have to share him with his pack, and perhaps with the memory of Takeshi as his first love--if he did, in fact, love Takeshi, which I'm not so sure of as you are. I think it might be that relationship that was the infatuation, not this one. But regardless, no matter whom you choose as your mate, that person will come with ties of love and obligation to other people. If you love Ash, you must accept him as he is--which doesn't mean that you need to let him treat you like a doormat, or offer him sex with no strings attached."

Tsubasa felt his face turn bright red, and he was grateful that they were still speaking Japanese and that Puddifoot couldn't follow their conversation. But still, he couldn't believe that he was having a conversation about sex with his mother in the middle of a public tea shop!

"But it does mean that you have to decide whether you want to commit to him and help him work through his 'baggage,'" Reiko continued. "And it means that you have to run the risk of being hurt if things don't work out."

"But how do I know if I really love him or not?" Tsubasa demanded in frustration. "If he is the one who is meant to be my mate, shouldn't I know it by now?"

Reiko shook her head and sighed. "You cranes think that this mating for life business makes everything easy, as if true love will walk right up to you, hit you on the head, and say, 'Here I am!' And I'll admit, that's often the way it seems to work. But not always. Sometimes love sneaks up on you gradually, as it did for your father and me, and for Takeshi and Aric."

"I want him, I care for him, but..." Tsubasa shrugged helplessly. "I don't know if that's love."

"I don't think that someone else can tell you if you're in love, Tsubasa," Reiko said quietly. "I think that's something you have to decide for yourself. But if you're asking me to describe what love is, then I guess I would say that it's when the other person's absence causes an almost physical pain, when there's a sense of joy and completeness when you're together. It's when that person's happiness matters more to you than your own, when you feel as though you'd sacrifice anything to keep them safe."

Tsubasa missed Ash when he wasn't around, but sometimes being with him hurt just as much as being without him did. Did that count as love? How much would he sacrifice to make Ash happy? "I don't know," Tsubasa murmured. "I don't know if I feel that way about Ash."

"You don't have to rush into anything, dear," Reiko said, patting his hand gently. "You're probably right when you say that Ash isn't ready to be in a relationship just yet. I think that you and he both need some time to work out your feelings for each other."

Tsubasa nodded reluctantly. "I guess you're right. I feel as if he can't be with me until he resolves things with his family, and he won't be able to do that until the murders are solved."

"Then I hope you're right, and that the Aurors catch the killer quickly," Reiko said.

Tsubasa hoped so too, but he rather doubted it. Nothing had been resolved, and he still wasn't sure how he felt about Ash, but strangely, he felt better for having shared his problems, as if a burden had been lifted from him. "Talking about all this makes me feel a lot better," he admitted. 

"Well, of course, sweetie," Reiko said matter-of-factly, and leaned across the table to give him a motherly hug. "That's what I'm here for."

"Thanks, Mom," Tsubasa laughed. "Um...by the way, you haven't shown those newspaper articles to Dad, have you?"

"Not yet," Reiko replied. "Your father would be tearing his hair out if he knew there was a killer loose in England. But still, I'm not sure that it's fair to keep it from him. You are his son, and he understood that you were choosing a life with a certain amount of risk in it when you chose to live with the tengu and become a warrior. He has a right to know if you're in danger."

"Ash may be in danger of being falsely arrested, but I'm not in any danger myself," Tsubasa argued.

"I'm not so sure of that," Reiko said gravely. "The Daily Prophet said that the second victim may have been targeted because her daughter works at the Sakura--a business with ties to the werewolf pack."

"Mom, you can't believe everything you read in the Daily Prophet!" Tsubasa protested.

"That's true, but it's still a logical assumption," Reiko replied. "And if the killer has a grudge against Ash or his pack, then you might well become a target if people know that you're Ash's lover."

"I'm not his lover!" Tsubasa shouted. "And anyway, nobody knows about us! Well, except for the pack." He paused for a moment, then added sheepishly, "And maybe Remus Lupin..."

"Sweetie, I've never even met Ash, and I suspected that he was your lover, or at least a potential lover," Reiko said impatiently. "I'm sure that anyone who has seen the two of you together can figure out that there's something going on between you." Tsubasa felt his face turn red again. "And anyway, even if you're just friends, that might still be motive enough for the killer to target you."

Tsubasa sighed and said, "I'll be careful. But don't tell Dad just yet. If the killer isn't caught within the next couple of weeks, I'll tell him myself, I promise. I just don't want him rushing over here in a panic to protect me when I'm quite capable of defending myself." He smiled wryly. "Actually, I'm more worried about him trying to play matchmaker than I am about him playing overprotective father."

Reiko giggled. "Oh yes, I can just see him playing go-between, speaking to Ash's pack leader about setting up a marriage meeting--a formal dinner, with family from both sides trying to decide whether their children are compatible, and then if that goes well, perhaps a betrothal ceremony..."

"Mom!" Tsubasa wailed. "You can't let him do that!"

Reiko burst into laughter at the look of horror on his face, causing Madam Puddifoot to stare at them with open curiosity. "All right, all right," she gasped between fits of laughter. "I'll keep your father under control. We wouldn't want to scare off your wolf, after all. Taming a wild beast is a delicate matter..."

"MOM!"

*** 

Meanwhile, back at Gladrags Wizardwear, the two apprentices were giggling and gossiping about the new Professor--whom they had recognized from his previous visits to Hogsmeade--and his mysterious female companion.

"Megan, Parvati, stop gossiping for a moment," the shopkeeper said impatiently. "We have several rush orders to finish, so we'll have to work through our lunch hour. One of you order some food to be sent in."

"Yes, ma'am," Parvati said obediently. "What would you like?"

"It doesn't matter, as long as they deliver," the shopkeeper replied in a distracted manner, handing Parvati a handful of coins.

"That Japanese place in London delivers," Megan Jones suggested. Like Parvati, she was a recent Hogwarts graduate, and they had started their apprenticeships at the same time. They hadn't known each other well in school, as Megan was a Hufflepuff and Parvati was a Gryffindor, but they had discovered that they both shared a love of clothing and fashion, and quickly became fast friends. Megan was pretty, with fair hair and skin in contrast to Parvati's darker complexion, and much to their delight, people often told them that they made a striking pair.

"Yes, that's fine," the shopkeeper said.

"And they have a cute delivery boy," Parvati whispered, winking at Megan, who giggled. 

"Damien will be jealous," Megan whispered back.

"There's no harm in looking, as long as I'm not actually going out with someone else," Parvati replied with a casual shrug. "I know that he still notices pretty girls, although he's a little more discreet about it than he used to be. Besides, what he doesn't know won't hurt him." Her boyfriend Damien Pierce was a year younger than her, which meant that he was still attending Hogwarts, and therefore unlikely to know whether or not she was admiring a handsome delivery boy--or a handsome Professor on a weekend trip to Hogsmeade, for that matter.

About half an hour later, the handsome blond werewolf Kai arrived with their order from the Sakura restaurant, while Parvati and Megan were still gossiping about Professor Tsubasa as they worked.

"Here's your order, ladies," Kai said cheerfully, unloading their food from the magical carrying case that kept the food hot and the dishes from tipping over and spilling in transit.

"Thank you," Megan said, fluttering her eyelashes at him.

Parvati automatically gave the werewolf a flirtatious smile as she paid him for the food, but her mind was still on the Professor and his companion. "Do you think he'll be back?" she wondered out loud.

"Will who be back?" a puzzled Kai asked.

"Oh, honestly, girls!" the shopkeeper said in exasperation. "Are you going to gossip about that Professor all day?"

"But he might come back and buy that robe his girlfriend was admiring," Parvati pointed out. "So you see, it's work related, ma'am."

"Professor?" Kai asked.

"Professor Tsubasa, the new teacher from Japan," Parvati explained.

"The pretty one, with the beautiful hair," Megan giggled. "He's got hair any girl would envy!"

"Ah yes, I know him," Kai said. "He's the nephew of the owners of the Sakura. But did you say something about a girlfriend? I think you must be mistaken, because I know he doesn't have one."

"Well, I don't know for sure," Parvati said coyly, "but he certainly seemed very cozy with this woman. A very pretty Japanese woman." She giggled and added, "But not as pretty as he is!"

"She was hanging on his arm," Megan chimed in, "and calling him 'sweetie'. So we assumed she must be his girlfriend. And I heard them say that they were going to Madam Puddifoot's--and the only people who ever go there are couples in love!"

"Maybe she's an old flame of his from Japan," Parvati said thoughtfully. "She was admiring that robe in the window, and he offered to buy it for her as a souvenir of her trip to Britain." Then she noticed that Kai had turned pale, and she asked in concern, "Is something wrong? Are you feeling all right?"

"Ah, no," Kai said hastily. "I mean, I'm fine, thank you. Please enjoy the food, ladies, and call on us again in the future." Then he bowed and quickly left the shop.

"Oh my," Megan said. "What was that all about?"

"Maybe he has a crush on Professor Tsubasa," Parvati giggled. It wasn't a thought that would have occurred to her before Professors Lupin and Snape publicly became a couple, but now it didn't seem so unusual that a man might be attracted to another man.

"Girls!" their employer called impatiently, and they sighed and went back to work, forgetting about the Professor and his girlfriend for the moment.

*** 

Kai rushed into the London townhouse, where he found Ash in the living room playing video games with the children, but without his usual enthusiasm--he was punching the buttons on the controller dispiritedly, and moreover, five-year-old Max was winning.

"Ash!" Kai shouted.

"What are you doing here?" Ash asked listlessly, without looking up from the television screen. "Aren't you supposed to be working?"

"I'm between deliveries, but never mind that!" Kai said impatiently. "I just made a delivery to Gladrags in Hogsmeade, and the girls there saw Tsubasa out on a date with a woman!"

"What?!" Ash exclaimed, finally turning to look at Kai.

Kyra, who had walked into the living room when she heard all the commotion, said skeptically, "I thought he was gay."

"They said he was walking arm-in-arm with a pretty woman who was calling him 'sweetie,'" Kai insisted. "And they went to Puddifoot's."

Kyra made a face. "I can't see how anyone over the age of fourteen can stand that place. I would have thought the peacock would have better taste than that."

"It seemed like she might have been visiting from Japan," Kai continued, ignoring the interruption. "Does he have an old girlfriend back home, Ash?"

"How would I know?" Ash snapped. "He never mentioned one before, but we didn't sit around discussing all our ex-lovers. Anyway, it's none of my business."

"None of your business?!" Kai asked incredulously. "I thought that you and he had a thing going on! Are you going to let him two-time you?"

"He isn't two-timing me," Ash replied, with what seemed to Kai to be amazing calm, under the circumstances. "There is no 'thing' between us. He doesn't owe me anything. He can date whoever he likes."

"But you like him, don't you?" Kai demanded. "Are you going to let this girl just steal him away from you? Aren't you going to fight for him?"

"Mind your own business," Ash snarled, throwing down the game controller. He started to leave the room, but then paused and turned back for a moment. "And I don't want you going after Tsubasa and asking him about this woman," he warned. "This is between him and me, and I don't need you meddling in my lovelife, so just stay out of it!" Then he ran upstairs to his room and slammed the door shut.

Kai stared after him worriedly, and Max asked, sounding confused and a little hurt, "What's wrong with Uncle Ash?"

"Uncle Ash is having boyfriend problems," Kyra said with a wry smile, picking up the abandoned game controller. "But don't worry, Auntie Kyra will play with you."

*** 

Ash lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling blankly, his anger quickly draining away. He had no right to be angry, anyway. He was the one who had blown his chances with Tsubasa.

He didn't really question Kai's statement that Tsubasa might have a girlfriend, even though Aric had given him the impression that Tsubasa was exclusively gay. Aric had only known Tsubasa for a short time and he might be mistaken, and after all, Ash himself had taken both male and female lovers in the past. And he wasn't really surprised that Tsubasa was seeking out a new love interest after that disaster during their last fencing lesson.

He wondered who the mysterious woman was, though...an old flame, perhaps, or a childhood sweetheart rekindling an old romance. Maybe he should feel hurt that Tsubasa had replaced him so quickly, but instead, he felt numb and empty inside, unable to feel either anger or sorrow. He couldn't even summon up enough energy to reach for the bottle of Firewhiskey that was hidden under his bed.

"I want your whole heart," Tsubasa had told him, but Ash's heart had not been whole since...Ash wasn't quite sure when. Since the first time his stepfather had struck him, certainly, or maybe even before that, going back to the time when he had been growing up unloved and unwanted in his Great-Aunt Ernestine's house. Whatever the reason, his heart was as scarred and damaged as the rest of his body, and he wasn't sure if he would ever be able to love Tsubasa the way that he deserved to be loved. 

Tsubasa was probably better off with his new girlfriend. Ash didn't know who this woman was, but if she was someone Tsubasa knew from Japan, she was probably a crane maiden, graceful and elegant--or maybe a fierce and beautiful tengu woman who was his equal on the battlefield. Although Ash had a hard time picturing a warrior woman calling her lover "sweetie". But either way, Tsubasa deserved someone worthy of him, someone who was able to love him wholeheartedly.

Someone who did not turn into a dangerous monster every month. Someone who would not put him in danger by losing control to the monster within even when the moon was not full.

"Aren't you going to fight for him?" Kai had asked. But Ash was tired of fighting, and besides, Tsubasa was better off without him...wasn't he?

Ash tried very hard to convince himself of that as he continued to stare at the ceiling for the next several hours.

*** 

Tsubasa still felt restless after Reiko went back home and he returned to Hogwarts, and he found himself wandering aimlessly around the castle. When the crane folk chose a mate, it was customary for them to weave some sort of garment for their beloved, usually a robe or a cloak made from their own feathers. Ash wasn't his mate, and in any case, Tsubasa was a poor weaver, but he couldn't get the idea out of his mind.

He sighed to himself and shrugged. Well, maybe weaving would at least distract him and take his mind off his worries. Chizuru had taught Weaving magic during her semester as a guest teacher at Hogwarts, so there must be a loom somewhere in the school.

He could have asked the Headmaster where it was, but then Dumbledore might ask him inconvenient questions about why he was looking for it. Or he might keep his silence, but smile with that knowing little twinkle in his eyes. Instead, Tsubasa tracked down Dobby, who directed him to the Room of Requirement.

He opened the door and found a large loom in the center of the room, along with skeins of thread for weaving, needles and thread for sewing and embroidering, dyes, and anything else that he might conceivably need to weave and sew cloth.

"What on earth am I doing here?" Tsubasa muttered to himself. His late mother and his father were both skilled weavers, but he was as inept at it as Takeshi was, unable to weave more than a few inches of cloth at a time without the thread snarling and knotting, and he didn't even have his cousin's excuse of being part-human. And even if he did somehow manage to weave an entire bolt of cloth, his sewing and embroidery were almost as bad as his weaving.

Besides, he and Ash weren't even on speaking terms, so why was he even thinking of weaving a lover's token for the werewolf? But still, he transformed into his crane form with a sigh, and began plucking feathers from his breast.

*** 

The rush orders that Parvati and Megan had been working on at Gladrags were for a party that the Dietrich family was giving. A number of prominent pureblood families had been invited, and many of them were buying new robes for it; Madam Malkin's and Twillfit and Tatting's were also busy filling custom orders for the party.

The official reason for the party was to celebrate the appointment of the new Dietrich heir, Erika. The unofficial reason--which everyone was well aware of--was for the Dietriches to get a look at prospective grooms for the new heir.

The new heir was not entirely happy about this, but she was resigned to it. Erika hoped that she would be able to love her husband, whomever he might turn out to be, but she was not a romantic who would throw everything away for love the way that her brother had. She was a practical and ambitious young woman, and she would never risk losing her life of wealth and privilege by taking an unsuitable lover like a Mudblood or a werewolf or someone of the same gender. However, as the sole remaining heir, she did have some leverage over her family, and they had agreed to allow her to choose her own husband--so long as he was a pureblood from a good family.

Which was why they were having the party. Still, Erika detested the formal and contrived nature of the husband-hunt, and would much rather have done things more discreetly, by getting to know the young men one by one on an individual basis, rather than playing Prince Charming--or rather, Princess Charming--at the ball.

"I feel like a brood mare at auction, being paraded before all the prospective buyers," Erika grumbled to her mother as they prepared for the party.

"Nonsense," Alison Dietrich said gaily. "It's the young men who are being paraded before you! You're very lucky, to have your pick of the most eligible bachelors in Britain."

"I suppose," Erika muttered doubtfully. Her mother's statement wasn't precisely true, as the most eligible pureblood men were actually the heirs to the oldest and wealthiest pureblood families in Britain, and those heirs would not be willing to give up their names and inheritances to marry into their bride's family. 

Erika would have to settle for a younger brother or cousin of those heirs, someone with no inheritance of his own, who would be willing to let his children take on the Dietrich name. But she supposed that she was lucky in that she was being allowed some choice in her selection of husband, when most girls of her rank were expected to marry whatever man their parents chose for them, whether they liked him or not.

"The Minister of Magic and his family will be attending the party," Alison told her daughter. "And as much as it pains me to say it, you might consider a match with one of their boys--they certainly have more than enough sons to go around. The eldest is engaged to that French girl, but the second boy, Charlie, is still single, although I hear that he's working in Romania and won't be able to attend. Perhaps we can arrange for you two to meet on another occasion. The next son, Percy, is married of course, and the youngest boy, Ronald, is unofficially betrothed to the Greengrass girl, but the twins are only a couple of years younger than you."

Erika didn't really want to marry one of the Weasley boys, and certainly not one of the twins, who had a reputation for being annoying pranksters, but before she could voice any objections, her grandfather did it for her.

"I don't want my heir marrying any son of that blood traitor Arthur Weasley," Roderick growled as he walked into the room, leaning on a stylish ebony-and-silver cane for support. He had mostly recovered from the stroke that had nearly killed him several months ago. There was more white in his hair than there used to be, and he tired more easily, which was why he was using the cane, but his spirit remained indomitable and he continued to rule the Dietrich family with an iron hand.

"I don't care much for him, either, but he is the Minister of Magic," Alison pointed out diffidently.

"But maybe not for much longer, if these werewolf murders continue," Erika's father Karl said, frowning uncomfortably. Erika suspected that he wasn't so much disturbed by the murders as he was by the reminder that his son was now a werewolf. Ever since Aric had quarreled with their grandfather shortly after being turned, no one in the family would talk about him or even mention his name; it was as if he had never existed. Erika knew that her mother missed Aric and sometimes wept for him in private when Karl and Roderick weren't around, but she obeyed Roderick's orders and did not visit her son or even so much as send him a letter by owl. 

Erika was the only member of the Dietrich family who still had contact with Aric, and she was careful to keep her visits quiet and discreet so that her grandfather did not find out. Someday, she promised herself, when she became head of the Dietrich family, she would welcome her brother back home--providing that he wanted to come back home to a family that had treated him so badly, which was somewhat doubtful. But at least Aric didn't begrudge her the heirship, and he seemed happy with his mediwizard boyfriend. Fortunately, Roderick didn't know yet that Takeshi Kimura was not just Aric's roommate, but his lover, or he might have had another stroke.

"We shouldn't rule out the possibility of an alliance with the Weasley family," Karl continued. "But it would be wise to wait and see whether Arthur will weather out this latest crisis."

"That seems wise enough," Roderick grudgingly conceded. "Although I still think that Erika can do better than a Weasley."

"The Weasleys do have a couple of things in their favor," Alison said, surprising Erika a little, because her mother was a typically dutiful pureblood wife who never disagreed with her husband or father-in-law. "One, they are purebloods, and two, they are certainly prolific. Many of the pureblood women have trouble conceiving, and we do want Erika to bear a healthy heir for the Dietrich family--and more than one, if possible."

So that explained why her mother was willing to argue with Roderick over the possibility of a Weasley marriage--grandchildren. "I am willing to do my duty and bear an heir for the Dietrich family," Erika said dryly. "But I certainly don't intend to bear seven of them!"

Alison laughed merrily. "I long to hold my hypothetical grandchildren in my arms, but yes, I agree that seven would be a bit much. But two or three would be nice."

"Two sons would be ideal," Roderick agreed. "An heir, and the proverbial spare in case the first heir proves unsuitable for some reason."

_Such as being bitten by a werewolf,_ Erika finished silently in her mind, with a touch of bitterness. It was true that in the past, she had resented Aric for being chosen heir over herself just because he was male, but she still loved her brother, and she did not approve of the way that her family had turned their backs on him.

"And a girl," Alison added, almost as an afterthought, oblivious to her daughter's bitter thoughts. "Every mother should have a daughter to dote on."

It wasn't possible for even the most talented witch to choose the gender of her children, but Erika silently vowed to herself that if her first child was a girl, she would have no others. If necessary, she'd secretly use a birth control charm to prevent conceiving any sons who might take the title away from her daughter. She would make her daughter the heir to the Dietrich family, and maybe in time, it would become a matriarchal line like that of the Blackmores or Donners. And that secret hope gave her enough strength and determination to endure her family's unthinking, callous remarks, as well as the party that followed.

Which was just as well, because the party was about as much fun as having one's teeth pulled without a pain-dulling potion. In fact, Erika thought that she would have preferred having her teeth pulled. She had attended many pureblood parties in her lifetime, of course, but never one where she'd been the focus of a matchmaking attempt. The mothers of the prospective grooms looked her over with appraising eyes, as if--as she had joked earlier--she were a prize brood mare or heifer for sale. The fathers looked at her with cold, calculating eyes, weighing the benefits and risks of a marriage alliance in their heads, and the prospective grooms themselves flirted with her and flattered her with varying degrees of charm and complete insincerity.

Except for the Weasley twins, who made no attempt to charm her at all, and made it clear that they would much rather have been in Romania with their brother Charlie than at this party.

"Well, this is rather refreshing," Erika told Fred Weasley in a dry voice as they danced together; he was holding her as gingerly and cautiously as he might have one of his brother's dragons. "You aren't even trying to pretend that you like me." 

"No offense, but I don't think that a Gryffindor-Slytherin marriage would work out," he said, smiling at her warily, but with a hint of rakish insolence that was almost charming.

"None taken," Erika replied with a smile. "But I'm not a Slytherin. I went to Durmstrang, not Hogwarts."

Fred relaxed, looking a little more at ease when he saw that she wasn't going to hex him. "But Durmstrang is essentially an entire school full of Slytherin types, isn't it?" he asked.

"I suppose so," Erika replied with a shrug. "But isn't your brother betrothed to a Slytherin?"

"Yeah, I never expected that of little Ronnie," Fred chuckled. "But Daphne seems like a nice girl, for a Slytherin." She gave him an ironic smile, and he added hastily, "Er...which isn't to say that you're not nice, too."

"Oh, I have been called many things, but 'nice' is not one of them," Erika laughed. "Don't worry, Fred Weasley; I don't intend to choose you for my groom. Someone with such blunt honesty would never last a minute among the pureblood elite."

Fred laughed, grinning widely with relief. "I've been called many things, too, and 'honest' usually isn't one of them!"

"Yes, I've heard that you and your brother are quite the pranksters," Erika said. "But you need to be able to tell polite lies with conviction in order to prosper in high society."

"If that means suck up to all these people," Fred said, gesturing at the other partygoers, "then no, I don't think that I can do that. I'm sure that you can find a Prince Charming among all these fine Slytherin men."

"Then let us just enjoy this dance," Erika said, and they did. The Weasley boy actually proved to be entertaining company once he was assured that he would not have to become her bridegroom.

When the song ended, Fred bowed over her hand, kissed it gallantly, and said with a wink, "You're not so bad for a Slytherin."

"And you're not so bad for a Gryffindor," Erika said lightly. From the sidelines, their mothers gave them speculative looks, and she realized that she and Fred might have given them the wrong impression. Well, that was all right. Let her family think that she was working to charm the Minister's son like a dutiful heir.

Her next dance partners were not quite so charming. Marcus Flint kept stepping on her foot; Adrian Pucey talked incessantly about himself; and Phillip Bole gloated about the lawsuit being brought against Professor Snape. His father's firm, it seemed, was handling the case for the alleged illegitimate Snape heir. Either he didn't know that Snape had befriended her brother, or he was too stupid to realize that he might be offending her, or maybe he didn't think that she'd care--her family had disinherited Aric, after all, and were pretending that he didn't exist. But whatever the reason, she was heartily sick of making polite conversation with vain and/or stupid young pureblood men. 

Erika and Phillip were dancing near the table where the refreshments were laid out, and she quickly jerked free of her partner and jumped aside as the punch bowl toppled off the table with a loud crash. Phillip was not quite as agile, and he cursed loudly as his robes were splashed with a liberal amount of punch.

"Marcus!" a furious Mrs. Flint hissed at her son, who happened to be standing closest to the punch bowl. "Must you be so clumsy when we're trying to make a good impression on our hosts?!"

"It's not my fault!" Marcus protested. "I didn't touch it, I swear!" A few people snickered quietly, and Alison Dietrich politely assured the Flints that no one blamed Marcus, but it didn't seem like anyone, Alison included, really believed him.

Erika took the opportunity to edge away from the crowd, and she caught sight of a man standing in the corner of the room, stealthily slipping a wand back into the pocket of his robe. No one but Erika seemed to notice. 

She glided over to the man, observing that he appeared to be in his mid-to-late thirties, with long blond hair pulled back in a tail, and thick-lensed glasses that gave him an owlish look. He wasn't someone that she was familiar with, and she had to search her memory for a few moments to come up with his name.

"You are quite adept with jinxes, Professor Bletchley," Erika murmured.

He gave her a startled look, then smiled sheepishly. "I beg your pardon, Miss Dietrich," Bletchley replied. "No malice was intended, I assure you. But it seemed to me as though you wished to escape your current dance partner...or to escape the dance floor entirely, perhaps...so I thought I would provide a distraction."

Erika gave him a puzzled look as she tried to determine his motives. The obvious explanation was that he had wanted to humiliate a rival and curry favor with her at the same time, but it seemed like he hadn't intended to reveal that he was the one who had cast the jinx on the punch bowl, because he clearly hadn't expected her to notice. So why would he do her a favor and not take credit for it? That was completely alien to the Slytherin mindset.

Still, he was Slytherin enough to guess what she was thinking. "Merlin only knows that I've wanted to escape many boring parties myself in the past," Bletchley said with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. Then he looked chagrined as he realized that he had just indirectly insulted his hosts. "Ah...not that this party is boring," he hastily demurred, not very convincingly.

Erika just laughed. "No offense taken," she assured him. "I quite agree with you, and I thank you for rescuing me. I was seriously considering hexing Phillip Bole."

"You're welcome," Bletchley replied with a relieved smile. "I am somewhat lacking in the social graces, as my mother always reminds me, but I am glad to be of service." He glanced over at Marcus, who was still being berated by his mother. "I feel a bit sorry for young Mr. Flint, though."

"I don't," Erika said with a grin. "He stepped on my foot at least five times while we were dancing!" 

"Then I shall feel no guilt about leaving Mr. Flint to his fate," Bletchley laughed.

Erika noticed that her mother was still occupied with cleaning up the mess and trying to calm down the Flints--and Bole, who was blaming Marcus for his stained robes--and she saw an opportunity to escape the party for at least a few minutes. "You know," Erika said, pressing a hand to her forehead, "I believe that I'm developing a dreadful headache."

"Perhaps you should get some fresh air," Bletchley said solicitously; Erika noted approvingly that he was quick to pick up on her cue. "Would you do me the honor of showing me your gardens, Miss Dietrich?"

He politely proffered his arm, and Erika laid her hand on it, saying with a smile, "It would be my pleasure, Professor." They quietly slipped out of the house without anyone noticing, and she added, "Please just call me 'Erika,' by the way."

"Then please call me 'Henry,'" Bletchley said. "I'm not really a Professor, anyway."

"Oh? I thought you taught at Durmstrang."

"I do a guest lecture every now and then, but it's more of an honorary title. Most of my time is spent doing research out in the field. Although I'm presently working at the Museum of Wizarding History in London."

"Yes, I heard that you've been researching those Irish artifacts?" Erika asked politely. "My cousin Theodore is apprenticed to a member of the archaeological team. What kinds of artifacts have they found?"

The polite interest in Bletchley's face changed to a look of real enthusiasm as he began describing the artifacts, which mainly seemed to be defensive items that the creator had used to protect his tower from intruders. Erika smiled, nodding or murmuring a brief response every now and then to indicate that she was listening. Her response was not wholly feigned; his work did sound genuinely interesting, but what truly interested her was what Bletchley's rhapsodic lecture told her about himself. It seemed that Henry Bletchley was a true scholar, with little interest in politics and power plays--something that was extremely rare for a member of the Slytherin elite.

"...but the most intriguing item is a stone medallion carved with a number of magical runes," Bletchley continued. "The runes are near-indecipherable; your cousin and his Master are still trying to translate them, but we're certain that it has something to do with lycanthropy. Personally, I think that it's a means by which to control or suppress the transformation. The medallion is chipped, but it radiates a strong magical aura, and I think it might still be functional, if we can decipher the runes and figure out how it works. Of course, we would eventually need a werewolf volunteer to test--" He suddenly broke off in mid-sentence, looking a little embarrassed and dismayed, no doubt just remembering that Erika's brother was a werewolf. "Um...ah...I meant no offense," he apologized awkwardly.

"It's fine, Henry," Erika reassured him with a smile. "Unlike my parents and grandparents, I am not trying to pretend that Aric does not exist, or that he is not a werewolf. He has adapted to his new life, and he even seems quite happy, so I'm not at all offended. In fact, I'd like to hear more about your research if it's something that can benefit werewolves. Wolfsbane Potion makes lycanthropy a manageable disease, of course, but my brother says that the transformation is still very painful." Erika smiled. "And that the potion tastes awful, although that's a lesser consideration." 

Bletchley nodded, a serious expression on his face. "Yes, and it's a difficult and expensive potion to make. The Ministry is funding the Wolfsbane Potion Distribution Program for now, but that could change if we have a change of Ministers, and Arthur Weasley's position is a bit tenuous at the moment. But if they could control the transformation with a spell or magical item, werewolves wouldn't need to rely on the potion."

"A good point," Erika conceded, giving Bletchley a quizzical look. "It's unusual for a pureblood to be interested in the welfare of werewolves."

"It was merely an interesting intellectual puzzle to solve at first," Bletchley admitted. "But I worked with your cousin's friend Blaise Zabini at the museum, and he spoke of Professor Lupin as someone he admires and cares about. And of course I've been consulting with Master Tremayne and Theodore about the runes, and Theodore regards Lupin as a parent. Even my cousin Miles speaks fondly of Lupin, and I'm told that the young Slytherin students all like him, and of course, you've told me about your brother. It's a reminder that werewolves are people, and not just research subjects." He shrugged. "Besides, I always thought the opposition to the Distribution Program was pretty shortsighted. Even people who hate werewolves ought to realize that we're a lot safer if they're not running around biting people during the full moon."

They talked more about Bletchley's research, and he even politely inquired about Erika's work at Gringotts, and they were in the middle of an animated discussion about curse-breaking techniques when Erika's mother found them in the garden.

"Ah, there you are, dear!" Alison said. "I've been looking all over for you."

"I had a headache, and the Professor was kind enough to escort me outside to get some fresh air," Erika said sweetly.

"Thank you, Professor," Alison said politely, then turned back to her daughter and sighed. "Goodness knows I was developing a headache myself, dealing with the Flints and young Mr. Bole! But if you're feeling better, dear, you should go back inside. You mustn't neglect your guests, after all."

"Yes, Mother," Erika said obediently, with a faint sigh of resignation.

"I wouldn't want to monopolize Erika's company," Bletchley said with a smile, and politely excused himself and headed back into the house. 

Despite her apparent eagerness to get Erika back to the party, Alison lingered behind in the garden to speak to her daughter in private. "Have you taken a fancy to Henry Bletchley?" she asked, looking a little concerned. "He comes from a good family, of course, but he doesn't have much ambition, so I hear, and spends almost all of his time abroad on one scholarly mission or another. His mother was lamenting that he rarely even comes home for the holidays."

"I can't say that I blame him for wanting to stay far away from his family," Erika said dryly. "Didn't his brother once turn him into a toad during a drunken argument?"

"Yes, but still, one has an obligation to one's family, whether one likes them or not," Alison replied, then frowned. "I've heard rumors that he was never quite the same after the hex was removed; it took them a week to find a way to lift it and return him back to normal." 

"There is nothing wrong with Professor Bletchley's wits," Erika said firmly. "He is a renowned scholar, after all, and I can confirm that he is able to carry on an intelligent conversation--which is more than I can say for Marcus Flint or Phillip Bole. But just so you don't get the wrong impression, Mother, I don't 'fancy' the Professor. I just took advantage of the opportunity to slip away from the dancing and allow my bruised feet some time to recover. Marcus stepped on them several times."

"Yes, that young man really is quite clumsy," Alison sighed. "And, as you pointed out, not very bright. I think that you can do better than him for a husband."

"I most certainly hope so!" Erika said indignantly, and her mother laughed as they headed back to the house. She still wasn't certain whom she would select as her husband, but at least if she married Bletchley, they would likely have intelligent children, which was a point in his favor. She shuddered at the thought of giving birth to little copies of Marcus Flint, all clumsy and stupid as mountain trolls...

*** 

Meanwhile, Henry was being congratulated by his family. "A romantic walk in the garden with the lovely heiress, eh?" his brother said, with a wink and a leer as he elbowed Henry in the side sharply, hard enough to leave a bruise, although it probably looked like a playful gesture to a casual observer.

Henry gritted his teeth and tried not to wince, not wanting to give his brother the satisfaction. As a child, his brother had taken pleasure in tormenting him whenever possible, which was why Henry had spent as much time as possible away from home since becoming an adult.

"I am glad to see that you are taking your duty seriously," Henry's father said approvingly. "I worried a little when you were playing wallflower instead of taking your turn dancing with Miss Dietrich."

"I am not a good dancer, Father," Henry said matter-of-factly. "I feared that my dancing might not make much of an impression on the lady, or might make the wrong impression--as Mr. Flint did. I made a much better impression by taking her away from the dancing for a few minutes, I think."

"Well, it must have worked, because the lady obviously shows you favor," his father said with a smug and avaricious gleam in his eyes. He patted Henry on the shoulder and said, "Keep up the good work, son!"

Henry briefly considered telling his father not to start planning the wedding yet, then changed his mind. If he admitted that he had only meant to give Erika a little anonymous help and had not intended to attract her attention or win her favor, then he would just get a lecture about doing his duty as a proper pureblood. Of course, his family would probably be disappointed when Erika eventually chose some other bridegroom, one no doubt younger and handsomer, with better political connections, but once he was rejected, he could return to his research project in Egypt and escape his family's complaints.

He hoped that Erika would choose a husband soon, so that he could escape his family obligations...but on the other hand, perhaps not too soon. He would like to finish his work on the Irish artifacts first, and solve the mystery of the werewolf medallion. And he had to admit that "courting" her was not the onerous chore he had imagined it would be. She wasn't spoiled or silly or conceited, as many young women of her rank were, and she was capable of carrying on an intelligent conversation.

But still, he looked forward to returning to his life of bachelor freedom.

*** 

"A full conclave of the Wizengamot?" Snape murmured to Morrigan as they walked into the courtroom on the opening day of the trial. "It seems a bit excessive for a simple matter of inheritance."

Morrigan glanced up at the balcony, where about fifty wizards and witches in plum-colored robes sat. "Not necessarily," she replied. "Not when it's a matter of deciding the inheritance for one of the oldest pureblood families in the wizarding world."

"And not when one of the parties involved is a notorious former Death Eater turned war hero, not to mention the lover of a werewolf," Selima added sharply, reminding her son that he was partially to blame for making himself a vulnerable target to Delauney's lawsuit.

"Everything will be fine," Lupin said reassuringly, patting Snape on the arm, and then went to sit in the spectator stands. Since he was not legally a member of the Snape family, he was not allowed to sit with Snape, Selima, and Morrigan at the defendant's table--another thing that was wrong with the wizarding world, Snape thought to himself sourly. Lupin was part of his family in every way that really mattered, but it didn't fit the Ministry's narrow-minded legal definition.

Sebastien Delauney walked into the courtroom with his lawyer, and Snape got his first look at the man who was challenging him for the right to be head of the Snape family. He was young and handsome, with blond hair and aristocratic features, and was clad in expensive, stylishly cut formal robes. He could very easily pass for a pureblood of high rank, and in fact, looked much more the part of the pureblood heir than Snape himself did.

"This is bad," Selima fretted. "He looks the role, and the purebloods tend to judge things on appearances."

"He'll need more than good looks to win his case," Morrigan assured her, but she looked a little worried, too.

"Maybe that will work against him," the Potions Master said with a small, sardonic smile. "He's far too pretty to be a Snape."

"My sources tell me that he looks very much like his late mother," Morrigan said. "Actually, Philomela also possessed the same sort of general physical build as her daughter-in-law: delicate, slender, and blonde. So Delauney can argue that he takes after his mother and grandmother rather than his alleged grandfather." 

At least Delauney lacked the Snape nose; if he'd had the same large, hooked nose that most of the Snape men did, the Wizengamot would probably have awarded him the title, or at least acknowledged him as a Snape, on the spot. However, while Delauney's nose could not be described as "beaky," it was still strong and prominent enough to be called "aquiline". It actually suited his aristocratic features quite well, and one could argue that the distinguishing Snape feature had been softened by his grandmother's and his mother's more delicate looks.

What was worse was that he was charming and articulate as well as handsome. He spoke fluent English with a slight French accent that only seemed to add to his charm--at least as far as most of the female members of the Wizengamot and the spectators were concerned. Snape saw many of them giving Delauney admiring looks, although at least Madam Bones, who was presiding over the case, remained as stern and impartial as always. But even the men seemed to be regarding the alleged heir favorably, or at least with grudging respect. Snape didn't need to use his Legilimency to know that they were thinking, "Well, he carries himself like a proper pureblood."

Meanwhile, Delauney was on the witness stand explaining that while poverty had forced his grandmother into her position at the brothel, she had never given up her pureblood pride. "She always made a point of telling my father that even though he was illegitimate, he still had old and noble blood running through his veins," Delauney said. "She told him that Lord Snape was his father, and she asked him to name me Sebastian after one of the Snape ancestors. Since we were living in France, my parents used the French spelling and pronunciation, 'Sebastien'."

"And your late mother was a pureblood as well, was she not?" Delauney's lawyer Edmund Bole asked.

"Yes, she was a member of the Guiscard clan, an old and respected French pureblood family," Delauney replied.

"But she was disowned by her family, was she not?" Morrigan demanded.

"Yes, she was, for marrying my father, the illegitimate son of a courtesan," Delauney replied in a polite and even voice. "But that does not make her blood any less pure."

"True," Morrigan conceded, changing tactics. "It is your father's blood that is in question. You say that Stefan Snape is your grandfather, but how can you really be sure of that? Philomela Delauney had several other regular clients in addition to Lord Snape, including Orion Black, Abraxas Malfoy, and Pembroke Parkinson."

A startled and excited murmur arose in the spectator section, and Madam Bones had to pound her gavel and call for order in the court. Rita Skeeter, who was sitting among the spectators, remained silent, but her eyes gleamed with satisfaction as she scribbled in her notebook with an acid-green quill.

"Impressive work," Selima whispered to her son, who nodded in agreement. They'd had only a short time to prepare for the trial, and the client list of an exclusive brothel like the one Philomela had worked at was a closely-guarded secret, but Morrigan had still managed to obtain crucial information in time for today's trial.

Delauney gave Morrigan an icy smile, but otherwise remained composed. "Yes, that is true, but she spent most of her time in Lord Snape's company. She seemed quite certain that he was the father of her child, taking into account when she was given the defective birth control charm and the time since her last menstrual cycle." 

"So you say," Morrigan said skeptically. "But neither your grandmother nor Lord Snape are alive to confirm your testimony. And besides, did she not tell Pembroke Parkinson that the child was his, and convince him to run off to France with her?"

"Yes, she did," Delauney replied. "But she lied, in an act of desperation. She could not ask Lord Snape to acknowledge the child, as he was ill and on his deathbed, and not expected to recover. And she dared not ask Lord Snape's wife and son for compensation, for fear that they might seek to eliminate a rival heir. Mr. Parkinson was enamored of her, so my grandmother told him that the child was his, and persuaded him to take her to France, where she hoped she would be safe, out of reach of the Snape clan."

"Still, infatuated though he was, Mr. Parkinson must have had some reason to think that the child might be his," Morrigan pointed out.

"He shared her bed on occasion, but Lord Snape was the father of her child," Delauney insisted.

"Have you any proof to back up your claims?" Morrigan demanded. "You have none of the distinguishing physical characteristics of the Snape clan, and in fact, you bear a much closer resemblance to the Malfoy or Parkinson families."

"Narcissa won't like that," Snape muttered. "I hope that he doesn't decide to try to take the Malfoy estate away from Draco if this fails."

"He'd look like a fool, claiming first to be a Snape and then a Malfoy," Selima whispered in a dismissive tone. "If he loses this lawsuit, he'll have no hope of winning a second one."

"I hope so," Snape said darkly, "because Narcissa will kill me if she thinks I tried to pawn off my problem onto Draco."

Meanwhile, Delauney was replying to Morrigan, "Physically, I resemble my mother and grandmother, who were both fair and blonde. And the fact that Pembroke eventually left my grandmother seems to indicate that he did not really believe that the child was his."

"All it indicates is that his family cut off his funds and threatened to disown him because they didn't want him to marry a prostitute," Morrigan retorted.

Delauney's face flushed with anger, but his voice remained calm and steady. "Once Lord Snape made it known that my grandmother was his favorite, the other clients visited her only infrequently, ceding preferential rights to him, as Stefan Snape was a high-ranking Lord whose goodwill they wished to keep. Philomela spent most of her time in Lord Snape's company, so logically speaking, it is most likely that he was the father of her child."

"But 'most likely' is not incontrovertible proof, Mr. Delauney," Morrigan said firmly. "It is not good enough reason to ask a legitimate and proven heir to step aside in your favor."

"Lord Snape gave my grandmother many gifts--jewelry and such, most of which she sold to support herself after Mr. Parkinson abandoned her," Delauney replied quietly. "But this, she kept and refused to sell, even when she was close to starvation." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cloak pin emblazoned with the Snape family crest of a serpent rampant, a snake curved into the shape of an "S". The pin was made of gold, and enameled in red and black, the Snape family colors.

A collective gasp arose from the spectator stands, and Snape noticed that his mother had frozen in place, her black eyes riveted on the cloak pin. She no doubt recognized it, as he did also, having seen it in several family portraits of his grandfather, including the enchanted portrait in the attic. 

Morrigan was taken aback for a moment, but quickly recovered and said, "That proves only that Lord Snape gave Philomela a piece of jewelry, or perhaps simply misplaced it and left it by accident in her quarters. It doesn't prove that you are his grandson."

"It proves, at the very least, that he held Philomela in high regard," Delauney said with a smile, a triumphant little gleam sparkling in his eyes. "A Lord does not hand over the family crest to a common whore. Perhaps, if he had lived, Lord Snape would have acknowledged Philomela's child as his son, if not necessarily his legal heir."

"Perhaps," Morrigan said scornfully. "And perhaps not. Besides, we have only your word for it that Stefan Snape actually gave it to your grandmother."

"A Lord doesn't simply leave the family crest lying around, either," Delauney retorted. "If he had forgotten it by mistake in my grandmother's rooms, he would have retrieved it later."

"How do we know that the crest is real, and not a fake replica that you had made?" Morrigan asked coolly.

Delauney just smiled and countered, "Can you prove that it isn't genuine?"

She couldn't, of course, at least not right here and now in the courtroom. "You can be sure," Morrigan said icily, "that if I discover you commissioned a fake crest, I will expose you for the fraud that you are."

"Be my guest, Ms. De Lacy," Delauney said with an insolent little bow.

"Madam Bones, I must protest!" Bole cried. "Ms. De Lacy is defaming my client without any evidence!"

"When you have evidence regarding the crest, then you may present it to the court, Ms. De Lacy," Bones said. "Otherwise, please refrain from speculation."

"As if this whole case isn't pure speculation!" Selima whispered to Snape scornfully.

"Yes, Madam Bones," Morrigan said respectfully, and moved on to a different line of questioning.

But Snape knew that even though the cloak pin proved nothing about Delauney's parentage, it had made an impression on the court and the spectators. Appearance mattered more than substance to most of the purebloods, and having the Snape family crest in his possession was a powerful symbol in Delauney's favor.

Morrigan was attempting to tarnish Delauney's princely image by questioning him about his occupation as a guide and procurer to the seamier sorts of entertainment available in Paris, but it wasn't really scandalous enough to completely counter the French wizard's charm and the Snape crest. The purebloods, and especially the Slytherins, tended to be rather jaded, and many of them had probably participated in the kinds of entertainment that Delauney provided, at least in their younger days. 

For his part, Delauney readily admitted to working in a less than respectable profession, but said that he was merely doing what he had to in order to survive, and swore that he would uphold the honor of the clan, if and when he was appointed head of the Snape family.

Morrigan grilled Delauney mercilessly, but he continued to maintain his composure and didn't let her bait him into losing his temper. And Bole played up Delauney's charm and charisma to good effect, even though solid evidence in their case was rather scant.

Finally, court adjourned for the day, with the next trial date being set for the following week. Rita Skeeter pounced on them as they left the courtroom, and Snape allowed his mother to field most of the reporter's questions, since she was much better at such things than he was. He would have evaded the press altogether, except that Morrigan had warned him that Delauney would surely take advantage of whatever publicity he could get, and the Snapes had better get their side of the story out there, or the Daily Prophet would only print Delauney's version.

Selima managed to project a convincing air of cool indifference, as if there were no doubt in her mind about the outcome of the trial, and she skillfully fended off questions about Snape's "scandalous" relationship with Lupin by countering with reminders that both Professors were heroes of the war. Mercifully, Selima kept the interview short, and soon the Snapes, Lupin, and Morrigan returned to Snape Manor to discuss the case in private.

"I had no idea!" Lupin exclaimed as soon as they were alone.

"No idea about what, Lupin?" Snape asked.

"That Orion Black was one of Philomela's clients!" Lupin replied. "Wasn't he Sirius's father?"

Snape smiled wryly and said, "I don't know why you're surprised after seeing that portrait of Black's mother at Grimmauld Place. I don't find it at all shocking that Orion would prefer the company of a pretty courtesan to that old harridan."

"Well, but she wouldn't have been old back then," Lupin pointed out.

"No, but she was always a shrew with a sharp tongue, even as a girl, or so I've heard," Selima said impatiently. "Although I can't see what difference it makes to us whether or not Orion Black was cheating on his wife, unless we can persuade the Wizengamot that it was Orion who was Sebastien's grandfather, and not Stefan."

"Unlikely," Morrigan said. "Although it does at least serve to cast doubt as to whether Lord Stefan was really the father of Philomela's son. Sebastien's case is all smoke and mirrors; he has no real evidence that Stefan is his grandfather, the cloak pin notwithstanding, and normally I'd say that he has no chance of winning, except that Severus has so many enemies on the Wizengamot. It's possible that they might vote against him simply out of pure spite."

"But he has powerful allies, too," Lupin said. "The Minister of Magic, for one."

"Whose standing has currently been weakened by the alleged werewolf murders," Morrigan reminded him. "His detractors will feel more inclined to defy him than they would if his position were secure. If the murders continue, it's quite possible that he'll even be forced to step down as Minister."

Lupin sighed unhappily, nodding in reluctant agreement. "And after all he's done for the wizarding world, as a member of the Order!"

"The wizarding world is fickle, Remus," Morrigan said with a cynical smile. "The public remembers one's failures far longer than they remember one's triumphs."

"Should we consider buying him off?" Selima wondered with a thoughtful frown. "With such a weak case, I have the feeling that he may be expecting a bribe rather than a courtroom victory. It would be well worth a few hundred Galleons to send this nuisance packing back to France."

"Not at this point, after just a single day in court," Morrigan said, shaking her head. "It will make us look weak, as if we fear him."

"And besides, I don't think he'll be bought off so easily, if one of my enemies has put him up to this," Snape said, frowning. "If he's already being paid off by one of the pureblood families, our bribe might not be enough to tempt him."

"I agree with Severus," Morrigan said. "At the very least, we shouldn't try to bribe him until we can find out how much he is receiving from his benefactor--assuming that he has one."

"That is true," Selima conceded. "We would need to at least match, and probably exceed whatever his patron is paying him."

"But the next phase of the trial is likely to get ugly," Morrigan cautioned. "Next time it will be your turn on the witness stand, Severus, and they'll question you in detail about your relationship with Lupin, and about your Death Eater activities."

Snape grimaced. "It will be unpleasant, no doubt, but I've faced such questioning before. I never officially stood trial, but I was unofficially grilled several times by Aurors and Order members, and only Dumbledore's testimony kept me out of Azkaban during the first war."

"If the trial continues, Bole will eventually call Theodore to the stand and question him about his relationship with Mr. Zabini," Morrigan said. "I'll try to postpone it as long as possible, but Bole will argue that they have a right to know whether or not the Snape heir will carry on the family line by producing an heir of his own, and the Wizengamot will likely agree."

"I will not subject Theodore to that kind of humiliation!" Snape snarled, clenching his fists in anger, feeling as though he wanted to hit something--preferably Sebastien Delauney's pretty face. He was used to being regarded with scorn and suspicion, was used to having his motives questioned, both figuratively and literally by everyone from his students to the Ministry, but he didn't want Theodore to have to go through that kind of experience. 

"You may not have a choice, Severus," Morrigan warned him.

"I'd love to pour some Veritaserum down that French bastard's throat and find out what he's really up to," Snape growled.

"Unfortunately, the court will not allow that," Morrigan said regretfully. 

"But if you could get him alone," Selima said with a sly smile, "say to discuss a possible settlement over a drink..."

"And I just happened to discreetly spill a few drops of Truth Potion into his drink?" Snape finished with a grin.

"Well, as your lawyer, of course I cannot condone such a thing," Morrigan said sternly. "However..." She winked at Snape. "...what I don't know won't hurt me." 

"If only there were some way to end the trial quickly, by proving that he isn't a Snape," Lupin said fretfully. "Is there no way that we could convince the court to accept the results of the D.N.A. test that Hermione proposed?"

"No, I don't think so, but even if we could, that would be a very bad idea, Remus," Morrigan said gravely. "We know that Lord Stefan really was one of Philomela's clients, so there is a small chance that Sebastien is actually his grandson. In which case, we would have proved his case for him."

"Ah, of course," Lupin said, smiling sheepishly. "I wasn't really thinking."

"Typical, for a Gryffindor," Snape said, but distractedly, more out of habit than anything else. "Besides, I'm less concerned with whether or not he has Snape blood than I am with the identity of whoever put him up to this."

"Especially if his anonymous patron really is behind the murders," Lupin said, in a more serious voice.

"Then it seems to be imperative that we find out who is backing Delauney," Selima said firmly. Lupin smiled at her, and she quickly added, as if to prove that she had only self-interest at heart, "So that the murders can be solved and Arthur Weasley can keep his position as Minister, otherwise I will have wasted my time cultivating Molly's friendship for nothing. And even if Delauney's patron isn't responsible for the murders, we still need to know whom our enemy is, and exactly what he promised Delauney. We might be able to outbid him and pay Delauney off, or perhaps simply proving that Delauney was bought might be enough to persuade the Wizengamot that he is a fraud, depending on the circumstances."

"I will continue my investigation, and try to discover the identity of Delauney's patron," Morrigan promised.

"Very well," Selima said briskly. "You are authorized to use whatever funds you need to buy information, should it prove necessary. And Professor Lupin, I understand that your werewolf friends have some unsavory contacts in Knockturn Alley."

"It's true that Lukas's pack used to be involved in activities of dubious legality, yes," Lupin admitted.

"Then they probably know people who buy and sell information," Selima said. "Tell Cyril to use his contacts and see if he can find out anything useful."

"I will," Lupin replied. "Although he might already have done so and come up empty. He's more motivated to solve the murders than anyone."

"I know that, Professor," Selima said impatiently. "But even if his contacts don't know anything about the murders, they might know something about Delauney. I doubt that it's occurred to anyone else that the two might be related. In any case, it can't hurt to try."

"Yes, Lady Selima," Lupin said, bowing his head respectfully. He had always admired Selima's strength, even when he disagreed with her methods and motives. Truth be told, Snape admired her, too, although he'd never admit it to her face.

"I will never let that little upstart steal the title and estate from us!" Selima said vehemently, her black eyes flashing with determination, and for a moment, Snape almost felt sorry for Sebastien Delauney.

*** 

Alden Madley poured a glass of Firewhiskey for himself and downed it one gulp, then leaned back in his armchair and stared broodingly into the flames flickering in the fireplace. He knew that there were two Aurors assigned to guard him; one was outside patrolling the grounds, and the other was somewhere in the house. Where, exactly, Alden wasn't sure, because he had curtly told the man to mind his own business and get out of his sight when the Auror had oh-so-politely suggested that he might be drinking a little too much.

As if seeing one's wife torn apart by a werewolf wasn't enough to drive a man to drink! Alden could still see Rosalind's body, covered with blood and disfigured nearly beyond recognition, every time he closed his eyes. The alcohol helped dull the horror of that memory, but only a little.

He had loved his wife passionately when they had first married, but that passion had quickly turned to hatred when he discovered how much she held him in contempt for his Muggle blood. But over the years, the hate had burned out and died down into indifference, and not long ago, he would have sworn that he felt nothing for Rosalind--neither animosity nor affection. 

But when he had come home from a business trip to find his wife lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood, he had been overcome by such grief and pain that it had almost felt like his heart was being torn to shreds the same way that Rosalind's body had. He had realized then, as he broke down in tears and gathered her torn, broken body into his arms, that he did still love his wife, after all.

Alden closed his eyes, trying to picture Rosalind as she had been when they had still been courting: young and beautiful, with waves of chestnut hair falling across her shoulders, a little glint of mischief and laughter sparkling in her eyes as she smiled at him coquettishly, under the watchful eye of her sour old great-aunt. A tear trickled down his face as he wondered how their marriage had gone so wrong.

It was too late now to save their marriage, but it wasn't too late to see Rosalind's killer brought to justice. He swore to himself that if those incompetent Aurors couldn't find enough evidence to convict his stepson, then he would track down that misbegotten mongrel and kill Ethan himself.

His eyes flew open as he heard footsteps behind him, and he turned around and snapped, "Damn it, Proudfoot, I told you to get out of my sight..."

Alden's voice trailed off as he realized that it wasn't Proudfoot standing behind him, after all. A big, rangy man with longish gray hair grinned at him with a mouthful of sharp, yellowish teeth. And then, to his horror, Alden realized that Proudfoot was present, in a manner of speaking--the gray-haired man was holding the Auror's body by the arm in one hand, as easily and carelessly as if it were a doll. Proudfoot's head lolled to one side, drooping on his shoulder at an unnatural angle, enhancing the image of a broken doll. The gray-haired stranger flung the Auror's body down on the floor in front of Alden, and Proudfoot's dead, sightless eyes seemed to stare up at him blankly.

Alden scrambled to his feet, reaching frantically for his wand, but the stranger pulled out his own wand and shouted, "Incarcerous!" Black ropes shot out of the gray-haired man's wand and wrapped themselves around Alden, and he fell helplessly to the floor with a thud.

"Oh, pardon me," the man said with a mocking grin. "I haven't introduced myself. Fenrir Greyback, at your service."

"Gr...Greyback?" Alden stammered, trying to recall why that name sounded familiar. And then he remembered...that was the name of a notorious Death Eater who had vanished during the first war. It was presumed that he had angered his master, and that You-Know-Who had killed him, but obviously that assumption was wrong. 

"HELP!" Alden shouted desperately, hoping that the Auror patrolling outside would hear him. "SAVAGE, HELP ME!"

"Savage?" Greyback asked casually, looking unperturbed. "Is that the name of the poor git who was patrolling the grounds? Don't expect any help from him; I broke his neck, too." He shook his head. "The Ministry's standards have certainly gone down since my day; he didn't even hear me coming. Then again, perhaps my comrades and I killed off the cream of the crop years ago, and these dregs--" He gestured at Proudfoot's body. "--are all that were left." Greyback smiled in a predatory manner that made Alden's blood run cold with fear, and he said, "I doubt that any of your neighbors are close enough to hear you scream, but just in case..." He waved his wand and uttered the incantation to a silence spell.

That predatory smile reminded Alden of something else he had heard about Greyback. "You...you're a werewolf," he whispered, his throat so constricted with fear that he could barely speak. "Did my stepson send you?"

"No," Greyback replied. "His daddy did--his real daddy, that is."

"Who?" Alden asked in confusion, feeling a flicker of curiosity through the fog of terror that overwhelmed him. He had always wondered about the identity of Ethan's real father, but Rosalind had refused to name her mysterious lover, no matter how much he had berated her about it. He had thought at the time that she was protecting her lover, which had infuriated him, but now Alden realized that it might have been herself that she was protecting.

"So you don't know who he is," Greyback said, looking pleased. "Which means that you haven't shared his identity with anyone. My employers will be glad to hear that."

"If you're trying to protect the identity of Ethan's father, I am no danger to you," Alden said urgently, thinking that there might be a chance to get out of this situation alive, after all. "I can't tell what I don't know. But I am a very wealthy man. Whatever your employer is paying you, I'll double--no, triple it, if you'll just let me go! Enough money to leave the country and start a new life--a very comfortable new life! You can't stay in Britain for long, anyway, without being hunted down as a fugitive!"

"Unfortunately, my employers have the means to kill me if I betray them," Greyback said, not looking particularly regretful. "And besides, to tell the truth, I take more pleasure in blood than I do in gold." He reached out with a finger and ran his long, yellow fingernail down Alden's cheek hard enough to draw blood, and Alden yelped in pain. "I got little pleasure out of those Aurors, since I had to kill them quickly so they wouldn't raise an alarm. So you will entertain me in their place, Mr. Madley." 

Alden began to whimper, and Greyback exposed his teeth in a hungry, wolfish smile. "But if it makes you feel any better, my employers intend for your stepson to be blamed for your murder, so you'll have your revenge, if posthumously. Of course, it was actually I who killed the fair Rosalind, not Ash Randolf, as I'm sure you've guessed by now. But you hated your son even before you believed that he killed your wife, so perhaps you'll take some comfort in knowing that he'll go to prison and probably be executed for your murder."

Alden whimpered again, and Greyback said, "On the other hand, perhaps not. But don't worry, you'll be joining your beloved wife soon. By the way, did you know that tonight is a full moon?" The werewolf glanced at the clock on the wall. "The moon should be rising soon, but I still have a little time to play with you in my human form before then." Greyback gave him another menacing grin. "And when the wolf comes out to play, well, that's when the real fun begins."

Even though he knew it was futile with the silence spell cast on the room, Alden began to scream.

*** 

Alden Madley's body was mangled even more badly than his wife's had been, and large chunks of his flesh were missing, as if a wild animal had been feasting on his body, although Proudfoot's and Savage's bodies were untouched. Just enough of Madley's face had been left intact to allow the Aurors to positively identify him.

Harry had nearly thrown up when he saw the body, and even Kingsley and Dawlish, both Aurors with many years of experience, had looked green around the gills. But they were still in a better state than the poor housekeeper who had found her employer's body. They gathered that she had reported for work that morning and found Madley dead, but they weren't able to get any more information out of her than that, because the woman had suffered a nervous breakdown and was currently lying sedated in a hospital bed at St. Mungo's.

"Get Randolf in here!" Dawlish shouted at Harry, Kingsley, and Tonks once they had transported the bodies to the morgue. "And get our two so-called werewolf experts here to examine the bodies at once!" The Auror's face was flushed red with anger, and he was visibly trembling, as if from the effort of holding himself back from tracking down Ash and killing him personally.

"Proudfoot and Savage were friends of his," Tonks murmured to Harry as they headed to the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office to find Ash. "That's why he's so upset. He's a thickheaded, narrow-minded git, but he does have a heart."

"Well, I can't blame him for being upset about his friends, but this will make him even more determined to arrest Ash," Harry said anxiously. "Why can't he consider the possibility that someone else might be the killer?"

"Because he's already made up his mind, and he hates being proven wrong," Tonks replied. "Let's just hope that Ash has a good alibi for last night."

"What is it this time?" Ash asked when they found him, looking tired and worried.

"I'm very sorry, but your stepfather has been killed," Tonks said gently. "Please come with us, Ash."

The werewolf turned pale, but he followed them without protest. When they reached the morgue, Tonks paused outside the door and said, "I have to warn you...it's not a pretty sight."

"Death is never pretty," Ash said with a cynical smile.

"No, but..." Tonks swallowed hard, turning a little pale at the memory of Madley's body. "This is even worse than the previous murders."

"That bad, huh?" Ash asked, looking at Tonks's pale face.

Tonks nodded. "I'd spare you if I could, but..."

"But Dawlish insists that I view the body," Ash finished in a bitter voice. "He hopes that sight of it will cause me to break down and confess, but if I really were a cold-blooded killer, the sight of my victim's body wouldn't bother me."

"I'm sorry," Tonks apologized.

"It's not your fault," Ash replied. He took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled and said, "All right, let's get this over with."

*** 

In spite of Tonks's warning, Ash's stomach turned in revulsion at the sight of his stepfather's mutilated body, and he clapped his hand over his mouth as he tried to keep from retching.

Images seemed to flash before his eyes, memories of the past: Madley, smiling in a bemused manner at the young "thief" he had found in his apple tree; Madley taking him for rides on his horse, and teaching him the names of the different herbs and plants that grew on the farm; Madley proposing to Rosalind and telling young Ethan (who was not yet Ash) to call him "Father"; Madley reading stories to him; Madley shouting at Rosalind and calling Ethan a "bastard brat," slapping him across the face; the sight of a whiskey bottle smashing into his face and ripping open his cheek; and the face of the werewolf that had turned him, a blur of mad, reddened eyes, rank gray fur, and long, yellowish, razor sharp fangs.

Conflicting emotions--love, hate, anger, sorrow--swept over him like a wave, and he felt his knees buckle beneath him...

*** 

Harry managed to catch Ash as he staggered, although the weight of the taller, heavier man nearly knocked them both over. But Kingsley's hand closed over Harry's shoulder in a firm grasp, and Harry managed to steady himself and help Ash regain his balance, although the werewolf continued to lean on him for support.

"Ash, are you all right?" Tonks asked in concern.

"Please," Ash whispered, still looking pale and as if he were about to faint, "I think I'm going to be sick."

Harry felt sorry for Ash, but he really hoped that the werewolf wasn't going to throw up on him, and began looking around for a basin or something else that Ash could vomit in other than his robes.

"Why don't you take him outside for a bit of fresh air?" Takeshi Kimura suggested kindly as he walked into the room with Healer Smethwyck.

Dawlish glared at the mediwizard, and Smethwyck said placatingly, "Come now, you don't want him throwing up on the evidence, now do you?"

"Fine!" Dawlish snarled. "Get him out of here, but don't let him out of your sight, Potter!"

Harry was more than happy to leave the presence of the irate Auror, not to mention Madley's mangled body. As Harry helped Ash out the door, the mediwizard patted Ash on the arm and murmured, "I'm so sorry, Ash."

Harry heard Dawlish sarcastically asking if the healers would mind getting to work, and then his voice faded away as he and Ash left the morgue.

Ash stumbled along, following meekly as Harry led him out of the Ministry building and into a side alley where hopefully no curious passersby, particularly Muggle ones, would spot them. Harry released Ash, and the werewolf leaned against the wall, gasping and taking in deep breaths as if he wanted to purge the death-scented air of the morgue from his lungs.

"Are you feeling a little better?" Harry asked, when Ash stopped gasping and closed his eyes, breathing quietly as he remained propped up against the wall.

Ash's eyes opened, but they looked a little glazed, and seemed to stare through Harry as if he weren't there. Then he tilted his head back and howled, a sound filled with such pain and grief that it brought tears to Harry's eyes.

And then Ash vanished, with the loud, cracking sound that always accompanied an Apparition, and Harry found himself standing in the alley alone.

"Oh, no," he groaned, wondering how he was going to explain this to Dawlish.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ash disappears and Dawlish threatens to issue a warrant for his arrest, so Harry, Tonks, and Shacklebolt enlist the aid of Snape, Lupin, Lukas, and Tsubasa to find him.

[I can't escape this hell  
So many times I've tried  
But I'm still caged inside  
Somebody get me through this nightmare  
I can't control myself

So what if you can see the darkest side of me?  
No one would ever change this animal I have become  
Help me believe it's not the real me  
Somebody help me tame this animal  
\--"Animal I Have Become" by Three Days Grace]

Predictably, Dawlish was furious when Harry reluctantly broke the news that Ash had Apparated away to parts unknown.

"I told you not to let him out of your sight, Potter!" Dawlish shouted.

"I'm sorry," Harry said. "I didn't think that he'd just Disapparate like that. He didn't say anything...well, not in words, anyway. He...well...howled, and then he just vanished."

"Howled?!" Dawlish exclaimed. "That's all we need, a bloodthirsty werewolf running loose in the streets!"

"He wasn't howling in a bloodthirsty way!" Harry objected. "It sounded more like..." He paused to think of the right word. "It sounded mournful, like he was grieving for his father."

"I'm sure he's just distraught about his father's death, Richard," Tonks said impatiently. "He's probably just gone off to be alone for awhile."

"Grieving?" Dawlish scoffed. "He hates his stepfather; he told us so!"

"That doesn't mean that his grief isn't real," Takeshi said, giving Dawlish a disapproving look. "It's possible to love and hate someone at the same time."

"He's right," agreed Tonks. "I remember that my mum wept when we got the news that her mother had died, even though they'd been estranged for years."

"I don't care whether he's grieving or not!" Dawlish snapped. "All I care about is the fact that Potter let our prime suspect escape, and we have no idea where he is now!"

"Ash isn't the murderer," Takeshi said, giving Dawlish a contemptuous look.

"Can you prove that, Kimura?" Dawlish demanded.

"As a matter of fact, I can," Takeshi said in a cool voice. "I was afraid that another murder might take place on the full moon, so I spent the night at the Diggory mansion to give Ash--and the rest of the pack--an alibi. I can testify that he was there all night, and never left the mansion, so he cannot be guilty of these most recent murders."

"And are you an unbiased witness?" Dawlish asked skeptically. "You're a very close friend of Randolf's, aren't you? In fact, Williamson thought you two might be a little closer than friends..."

"Williamson's a liar!" Takeshi retorted, but he blushed slightly. "I wouldn't put too much faith in the word of a man who's residing in Azkaban for attempted murder!"

"Oh?" Dawlish asked with a suggestive sneer. "Aren't you and Randolf...close?"

"Ash isn't my mate!" Takeshi shouted. "Aric is!" Then a look of consternation spread across his face as he realized that he'd inadvertently given away more information than he'd intended.

Perhaps that had been Dawlish's intention all along, because he said triumphantly, "If you have a werewolf lover, then you're a biased witness! Your testimony isn't reliable, and I won't have you conducting any further autopsies on the victims!"

"You've gone too far, Dawlish!" Smethwyck said indignantly. "Mr. Kimura has always conducted himself in a professional manner! You might just as well accuse Ms. Tonks and Mr. Shacklebolt of bias because they are friendly with Mr. Randolf, or the Minister of Magic himself for passing the equal rights bill!"

"I do believe that they're biased!" Dawlish snapped. "I just don't have the authority to remove them from the case. But I do have the authority to issue a warrant for Randolf's arrest!"

"You can't do that, not without Arthur's permission!" Tonks protested.

"Aric is gay?" Harry asked incredulously, of no one in particular. Snape, Lupin, Theodore, Blaise, and now Aric--he wondered just how many of his former teachers and classmates were gay.

Everyone else ignored him. "I'm the lead Auror on this case!" Dawlish told Tonks. "And when a suspect runs off before we can question him, that's grounds for an arrest warrant!"

"But he has an alibi!"

"Given to him by someone who has reason to protect the werewolf pack!"

"Let's all calm down," Kingsley urged, stepping between Dawlish and Tonks. "I'm sure that it wasn't Randolf's intent to flee from justice. He was probably just upset about his father's death, as Tonks suggested. The sight of that body was unnerving even for me, and I'm not related to the victim."

"What upsets me is that two Aurors are dead--in case you've forgotten, Shacklebolt," Dawlish said darkly.

"I haven't forgotten, Richard," Kingsley said quietly. "I'm just saying that you don't need to issue an arrest warrant. Give us some time to find Randolf and have him come in voluntarily."

"I'll give you one hour to find him," Dawlish said curtly. "After that, I'm sending a squad of Hit Wizards after him--and I'm warning you that I don't particularly care whether they bring him back whole or in pieces."

Tonks opened her mouth to protest, but Kingsley took her by the arm and hustled her out of the morgue; Harry followed after them. "He's too upset about Proudfoot and Savage to be reasonable right now," Kingsley said. "The more time we waste arguing with Dawlish, the less we have to find Randolf."

"Where do we start looking?" Harry asked.

"We should start at Hogwarts," Tonks replied. "I don't think he'd go there, but Lukas and Remus are there, and they might have an idea of where he would go."

They took the Floo over to Hogwarts, and Dumbledore called both Master Diggory and Professor Lupin to his office to consult with them. Though not specifically invited, Snape turned up with Lupin.

The werewolf leader checked with his wife at Diggory Manor, and with the werewolves at the London townhouse, but Ash was not at either residence. "If he didn't go home, I don't know where he could have gone," Diggory said, looking troubled. "I suppose he might have gone to a bar in Knockturn Alley to get drunk, but generally when he's upset, he prefers to drink alone in his room. I would say that he might have gone to see Takeshi, but you said that Takeshi was at the Ministry..."

"Perhaps he might contact Tsubasa?" Lupin suggested, so Dumbledore called Professor Tsubasa to his office as well.

"Tell me exactly what happened," Tsubasa ordered, and listened intently while Harry explained about the murder and Ash's reaction to seeing the body. When Harry finished speaking, the Professor frowned thoughtfully for a few moments, then said slowly, "Ash was much closer to his stepfather than he was to his mother..."

"Really?" Tonks asked curiously. "I would've thought it would be the other way around, since Rosalind was the biological parent."

Tsubasa shook his head. "His mother treated him with resentment and hostility for most of his childhood, or at best, indifference. But his stepfather...well...actively courted him, in a manner of speaking. Not sexually, but he worked hard to befriend Ash and win his affection, in the mistaken belief that doing so would impress Rosalind. Ash truly loved Madley like a real father, so his stepfather's death would be more traumatic for him than his mother's."

"But Ash said that he hated his parents," Harry said, a little doubtfully. 

Tsubasa smiled sadly. "It is a hatred borne of love, Mr. Potter. A betrayal by someone close to us always hurts more than a betrayal by a stranger, or even an enemy."

Harry thought about it, and realized that maybe Tsubasa was right. Snape had often treated him unfairly during his years at Hogwarts, and he had resented and sometimes even hated the Potions Master because of that. But none of Snape's insults and snide remarks had hurt as much as seeing the memory of James Potter behaving like a bully in the Pensieve. In a way, it had felt like a betrayal to see the father that he had idolized behaving no better than Dudley or Draco. He hadn't hated James for that, but he had been devastated by that brief scene, and it had taken him a long time to come to terms with it.

"I agree with you, Tsubasa," Diggory growled impatiently. "But I don't see how this helps us find Ash."

"Forgive me," Tsubasa said apologetically. "I wouldn't betray Ash's confidences lightly, and there is a point to all this. At the moment, Ash isn't a Ministry official or a smuggler or even a member of the werewolf pack; he is a son who's lost his father. There is a cave where he used to hide to escape his stepfather's rages when he was a child. I believe that he might have instinctively returned to that childhood sanctuary."

"You may be right!" Diggory said excitedly, his irritation vanishing. "He mentioned that cave to me, too; that's the place where he was turned."

"If that was where he was turned, wouldn't it hold bad memories for him?" Snape asked skeptically.

"Yes, but I still think that's where he's gone," Tsubasa insisted. "It was the one place he felt safe as a child, despite the werewolf attack. He continued to hide there after he was turned, fearing that his stepfather and the townspeople would turn him over to the Ministry to be imprisoned or executed as a werewolf."

"We had might as well try it, since no one else seems to have any better suggestions," Diggory said. "The only problem is that I don't know exactly where the cave is. Do you?"

"Not exactly," Tsubasa replied, a bit sheepishly. "I just know that it's located in the woods near the Madleys' home. But I thought maybe you could, well..." He gestured vaguely. "Track him down with your werewolf senses or something."

"I don't think that my sense of smell in human form is good enough to track him by scent like a bloodhound," Diggory said dryly, "but I'll try my best. If worse comes to worst, one of you can attack me, and I'll try to take wolf form to pick up his trail."

"Let's try more mundane methods first," Kingsley urged. "Dawlish will have a fit if he hears that you're running around in wolf form when the moon isn't full."

"I'd rather not try to provoke a forced transformation, either," Diggory retorted. "It's difficult, dangerous, and extremely painful. But we have a limited amount of time in which to find Ash."

"Then let's get started," Tsubasa urged. "Ash used to be close to some of the workers on Madley's farm, and maybe they can help us narrow down the search. Even if they don't know where the cave is, they might be familiar with the areas where he used to play as a child."

They traveled by Floo to the farm, where they found the workers in a state of confusion and fear. Some of them were afraid that the werewolf might attack the farm next, while others were more worried about what would happen to their jobs now that their employer was dead. Kingsley singled out a man named John Zeller, who seemed to be in charge and was slightly calmer than the other workers, and explained that they needed to find Ash.

"Do you really think that young Master Ethan killed his parents?" another man asked anxiously.

"Nonsense!" Zeller snapped. "Ethan was a bit of a scamp, but there was never any meanness in him."

"But that was before he became a werewolf," the other man argued. "He could have changed over the years. And Merlin knows he had reason enough to hate Mr. Madley, God rest his soul."

"If he wanted revenge on his parents, he could have killed them on the first full moon after he was turned," Zeller retorted. "Instead, it seems he ran away to London and left them in peace. According to that article in the Daily Prophet, he's a war hero and a friend of the Minister of Magic, but he never tried to use his influence to hurt Mr. Madley's business. Ethan was a good lad, and I can't believe he's changed that much, even if he is a werewolf now. He isn't a killer."

"You defend him so eloquently now," Tsubasa said coldly. "But where were you--all of you--when he needed your protection fifteen years ago? If someone had defended him from his father then, he might not have gone into the woods that night, and he would not have been attacked by the werewolf that turned him."

The workers looked away, avoiding his gaze, and Diggory growled at Tsubasa, "We don't have time for this now!" Then he glared at the farmhands and added, "Although later, I might want a word with you lot. But right now, we need to find Ash, and we're running out of time."

Zeller hung his head for a moment, then looked up and said quietly, "Yes, we failed Ethan when he was a child, even though we were all fond of him. We had families to support and were afraid of losing our jobs, so we protected ourselves at his expense. I know that nothing I do will ever make up for that, but if I can help him now, I'll do whatever I can."

Tonks explained that they didn't believe that Ash was a murderer, either, but that his sudden disappearance made him look guilty in the eyes of the Ministry, and that they had to find him quickly before Dawlish issued an arrest warrant.

"I believe he's gone to his old hiding place in the woods," Tsubasa said. "There's a small cave shielded by brush where he used to go to hide from his stepfather."

"Yes, I know that he used to run off into the woods," Zeller replied. "But I don't know exactly where his hiding place is. He knew those woods better than any of us, and no one could ever find him when he didn't want to be found, not even when we feared for his life after we heard the werewolf howling on the night of the full moon."

"The search party actually passed near the cave," Tsubasa said. "He was going to call out for help when he heard someone say that the Ministry should put down the werewolf, and then he became afraid that he would be killed too, once they found out that he'd been turned."

"So our careless words prevented him from getting the help that he needed, poor child," Zeller said, looking dismayed. "Although maybe he was right to fear...no one would have executed a child, of course, but the townsfolk wouldn't have wanted a werewolf living in the village, especially after that attack..." He quickly shook his head. "But I'm rambling, and you said we're short on time. Come, I'll take you to the woods and try to retrace the search party's steps, although it's been fifteen years, so I'm not sure how well I remember it. But I'll do my best."

They had just entered the woods when they heard what sounded like the mournful howl of a wolf, and Snape said dryly, "Well, it seems that we won't have any problems tracking him down, after all."

The wolf--or Ash--continued to howl, and they hurried towards the sound, Lupin and Diggory pausing once or twice to get their bearings and determine which direction it was coming from. They made their way deeper into the woods, and the howling grew increasingly louder until it was obvious that it was coming from behind some bushes that were growing up against the side of a small hill.

"Yes, I remember we passed by here when we were searching for Ethan!" Zeller said. "We never suspected there might be a cave behind those bushes."

"Ash?" Diggory called. "Ash, it's us; please come out!" The howling stopped, and they heard a low growl, but Ash did not emerge from the cave.

"Ash!" Tonks shouted anxiously. "I know you're upset, but you have to come back to the Ministry with us! Dawlish thinks you ran away because you're guilty, and he's going to have you arrested if you don't return for questioning!"

When Ash still didn't emerge, Diggory shouted, "He's going to send out a squad of Hit Wizards to bring you back dead or alive, so get your arse out here right now, Ash!"

There was no response other than another growl and a whine, and Diggory frowned uneasily, muttering, "He's sounding awfully wolfish..."

"When a werewolf is upset, it's natural for its animal instincts to take over," Lupin replied, also frowning. "But it's unusual for a wolf to defy the pack leader's orders."

"We don't have time to coax him out," Snape said impatiently, then drew his wand and pointed it at the bushes. 

"Er, Severus, I'm not sure if that's--" Lupin started to say, but Snape had already cast his spell and the bushes exploded into a shower of twigs and leaves, exposing the cave entrance, which was just barely large enough for an adult man to fit through if he got down on his hands and knees. "--really a good idea," Lupin finished with a sigh.

"The Yule Balls were good practice for this," Snape said, smiling smugly.

There was a startled yelp from within the cave, and Harry thought he caught a glimpse of a bushy tail retreating further into the cave. "What the...!" he gasped, then turned to the others. "Did you see that?!"

"Ash!" Tsubasa cried, diving towards the cave entrance, moving more quickly and gracefully than Harry would have thought possible.

"Stop, you fool!" Diggory cried, reaching out to grab at the other man, but it was too late; his fingers closed around empty air as Tsubasa vanished into the cave. The werewolf leader cursed out loud and crouched down to enter the cave himself, but Snape grabbed his arm to stop him.

"Use your brain instead of your instincts!" Snape snapped when Diggory snarled at him. "If you go charging in there, you might alarm the wolf, and he might attack Tsubasa, and you would have provoked what you were trying to prevent! Besides, I'm not sure that cave is big enough to hold all three of you, anyway."

They could hear a low growl from within the cave, and Tsubasa's voice, calling out Ash's name in soothing tones. "Damn it, what are we supposed to do, then?" Diggory asked, running his hand through his hair in frustration. "What if he bites, or even kills that stupid peacock? Then Dawlish would be able to arrest Ash for murder, after all!"

"Tsubasa is a shapeshifter," Lupin said uncertainly. "It's possible that a werewolf's bite might not affect him. My Animagus friends were safe with me when they were in their animal forms."

"A werewolf's bite has no effect on animals," Snape said dubiously. "But I don't know what effect it would have on Tsubasa's human form, and I certainly wouldn't care to put it to the test."

"Maybe we could try casting a sleep or stunning spell through the cave entrance?" Tonks suggested. "It might knock both of them unconscious, but Professor Tsubasa won't take any harm from it, and we could pull Ash out of there without anyone getting hurt."

"It's too dangerous," Snape objected. "We don't have a clear view of the target, and if you don't succeed in stunning Randolf, the wolf might perceive the spell as an attack, and then he'll lash out at whoever is closest to him--and then Hogwarts would be short one Professor."

"Oh," Tonks said, looking disappointed. "It sounded like a good idea in theory, but I guess you're right."

"Well, it might be necessary as a last resort," Snape conceded grudgingly. "But I think we should hold off, unless it seems like the wolf really is going to attack Tsubasa." He paused to listen, and the others fell silent as well. They could hear Ash growling and whining, and Tsubasa speaking to him coaxingly; the Professor sounded a little nervous, but he didn't sound as though he were under attack.

"I swear, if Ash doesn't kill him, then I will, for being such an idiot!" Diggory growled.

"Come now," Kingsley said, laughing nervously. "We know you don't really mean it, but that's the kind of talk that makes people like Dawlish think that werewolves are dangerous."

"We are dangerous," Diggory said with a mirthless smile, his yellow-green eyes glittering coldly. "And I will kill anyone who tries to harm my pack--or at least make them wish they were dead."

Kingsley sighed heavily, and Tonks said comfortingly, "Well, at least Dawlish isn't here."

"I wouldn't worry too much," Lupin told Diggory in a more confident voice. "A wolf won't hurt its mate, so I don't think that Ash will harm Tsubasa."

"Mate?!" Harry exclaimed. "Ash...and the new Professor?"

"Well, I had my suspicions," Kingsley said with an amused smile, and Tonks giggled.

Harry felt rather stupid, and it didn't help when Snape muttered disparagingly, "Oblivious as always, Potter." It seemed unfair; he had never met Professor Tsubasa before, so how was he supposed to guess that there was something going on between him and Ash? And then he remembered that Ash had been very keen on taking fencing lessons from the Professor, and not so keen about sharing those lessons, when Sirius had suggested that perhaps Tsubasa might be willing to teach Harry, too.

Zeller, at least, looked as startled as Harry, although he made no comment and only raised his eyebrows slightly. Master Diggory did not look at all amused, and he growled at Lupin, "I don't know if their relationship has progressed far enough that the wolf will recognize Tsubasa as its mate. The two of them seem to spend more time fighting than they do courting."

"Oh, fighting can be a form of courtship," Lupin said with a knowing grin. "Think of me and Severus, or yourself and Narcissa." Snape glared at his lover, but Lupin blithely ignored him and continued, "They might be in a bit of denial right now, but with the way that Tsubasa instantly jumped into that cave without stopping to think about the dangers of confronting a transformed werewolf, I'd say that they're probably mated. Even if their human sides won't admit it, their animal instincts won't be able to deny it."

"I hope you're right, Remus," Diggory said, gazing at the cave with a worried look.

*** 

When he caught a glimpse of Ash's wolf form in the cave, Tsubasa knew that something was very, very wrong. A werewolf should not be able to transform when the full moon had passed unless it was in extreme danger; emotional trauma would not normally cause such a change. Without thinking, he plunged through the entrance of the cave and came face-to-face with a huge brown wolf that growled at him, opening its jaws to bare its very long and sharp teeth, and Tsubasa realized that he had probably just done something very foolish.

He instantly froze in place, trying to avoid any movements that the wolf might find threatening, and said in a low, soothing voice, "It's all right, Ash. It's me, Tsubasa; I'm not going to hurt you." Which was probably a stupid thing to say, since he was in more danger from the wolf than the wolf was from him, but he doubted that Ash could really understand his exact words right now, anyway. What mattered more was his tone of voice, and he kept up a stream of soothing patter, repeating both his and Ash's names frequently in the hopes that it might jog some recognition in Ash's mind.

The wolf continued to growl, but it hadn't attacked him yet, which was an encouraging sign. The wolf's nose twitched slightly as it sniffed at the air, and Tsubasa thought--or at least hoped--that Ash recognized his scent on some subconscious level, and perhaps that was keeping the wolf from attacking him.

As Tsubasa's eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw indications that this was indeed the cave that had been Ash's childhood sanctuary: shreds of cloth that might once have been a robe or a blanket, probably torn apart by some animal to make a nest, or perhaps just rotted away due to age and weather; a couple of books in equally bad condition, torn and chewed on; a battered plastic toy Quidditch player; and a few empty tin cans.

He and Ash stared at each other for a moment, the wolf's hazel eyes looking yellowish and feral in the dim light, and then Tsubasa very slowly and carefully extended his hand, palm up, as if he were trying to befriend a strange dog. The wolf cautiously took a step forward, and Tsubasa relaxed slightly when the wolf did not immediately bite his hand off, but instead sniffed at it curiously, its wet nose brushing against his palm.

Then suddenly the wolf lunged at him, its front paws hitting his chest and knocking him over onto his back, and Tsubasa fought back a scream, afraid that the wizards--particularly the Aurors--outside the cave might be alarmed and try to attack the werewolf, and he couldn't bear to let any harm come to Ash, not even to protect himself. Besides, the cave was so cramped that any spells fired were just as likely to hit him as they were to hit Ash.

But despite his good intentions, he felt his heart pounding with fear as the wolf loomed over him, snarling and giving him a much closer view of its teeth than he would have liked, and he repressed an hysterical giggle as he suddenly remembered a line from a fairy tale that his stepmother had read to him when he was a child: "My, what big teeth you have." 

He had once arrogantly told Ash, "You could not lay a hand on me if I did not permit it," but he was helpless right now. With the weight of the wolf's body pinning him down, he couldn't reach his wand or his swords. The wolf wore no clothing, so he couldn't use Weaving magic to restrain it. He could try to use the scattered shreds of cloth to conjure a rope, but he didn't think that there were enough of them to form a binding strong enough to hold the wolf. There were a few other wandless spells that he could cast, but none that were strong enough to disable a werewolf. Maybe he could Apparate out before the wolf could bite or scratch him, but that was a bit iffy, and besides, they were in such close physical contact that there was a good chance that he would Apparate Ash along with him, even if he didn't intend to.

He could transform into a crane, but he doubted that would do much good, since he would be unable to fly, or even fully spread his wings in the confines of this small cave, even if he hadn't been trapped under the wolf's body. A werewolf's bite would not infect an animal, but its strong jaws could easily snap a crane's slender neck.

He knew that when canines fought, the weaker animal signaled defeat and submission by lying on its back and exposing its throat. So, hoping that Ash's wolf instincts would recognize the gesture, Tsubasa tilted his head back, offering up his throat to the wolf, even though his own instincts were screaming at him not to. The part of him that was crane was silently shrieking in panic, telling him to flee, or if that was impossible, to fight for his life--anything but passively offer up his throat to be torn out.

He broke out in a cold sweat, his muscles tensing with fear, half-expecting the wolf's razor-sharp teeth to rip open his throat. But instead, the wolf lowered its head to snuffle at him, tentatively lapping the sweat off his skin with its tongue, and it growled and whined, sounding confused. 

Tsubasa sighed, releasing a breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding until now. "Ash," he whispered, hoping that the wolf's hesitation meant that his friend recognized him.

*** 

The wolf had been alone in its den, howling its grief, when the humans arrived. It did not recall when and how it had come to the den, which smelled familiar but musty, as if it had not been used in some time, and neither did the wolf know exactly why it was grieving. It only knew that it was in pain, and it gave voice to that pain with its howls.

Then it heard footsteps and voices, and the wolf growled, torn between a primal instinct to attack the humans it could hear and smell outside its den, and a stronger urge that told it to hide, the same urge that had driven it here to this den. 

The voices called out to him, coaxingly at first, and then a familiar voice shouted, "He's going to send out a squad of Hit Wizards to bring you back dead or alive, so get your arse out here right now, Ash!" The wolf did not understand the words, but the sharp note of command in that voice was clear, and the wolf automatically took a few steps forward before it growled in rebellion, and then whined unhappily. Even though the voice was human, it carried the authority of a pack leader, and the wolf's instincts were telling it to obey. But again, its pain and its irrational but overpowering urge to hide prevented it from acting on its normal instincts.

And then the bushes shielding the entrance of the den suddenly exploded, and the wolf yelped in fear and surprise, and it retreated as far back into the den as it could. And then it got another shock, as one of the humans dove headfirst into its den, shouting, "Ash!"

The wolf growled at the intruder, and the human froze, murmuring, "It's all right, Ash. It's me, Tsubasa; I'm not going to hurt you."

The wolf growled again. The urge to attack was stronger this time, with the human crouching right in front of it, but its scent was vaguely familiar, and the soothing tone of its voice calmed the wolf slightly. 

The human extended its hand, and the wolf cautiously stepped forward and sniffed it. The scent of human flesh aroused its bloodlust and its need to pass on its curse, but there was something else, something strange and yet familiar underlying the human scent that aroused an entirely different instinct, one that made it want to protect the human.

The wolf lunged forward and knocked the human over, snarling as it felt itself torn between two contradictory urges. And then the human tilted its head back and exposed its throat, signaling submission, and the wolf calmed slightly. It lowered its nose until it touched the skin of the human's throat and chest, the small area not covered by the human's clothing, and it inhaled deeply. 

There was the strong scent of human flesh, of course, made even stronger by the scent of sweat and fear--a male scent, the wolf noted--but there was something else beneath it, something not quite human...something strange and exotic. The man in the cave smelled like...the wolf's mind struggled to comprehend. His scent made the wolf think of birds in flight, or a summer breeze, or a crisp, chill wind whipping through the air on an autumn day. He smelled like...freedom.

The wolf whined, feeling very confused. Was the man prey, or not-prey? And there was something so familiar about his scent...the wolf lapped the beads of sweat off the man's skin, and that taste, too, was familiar.

The man exhaled in a soft sigh, and whispered, "Ash." The man's voice, like his scent and taste, was familiar, and the wolf finally relaxed. The man was not prey; he was pack, and his scent and voice and touch all made the wolf think not of killing, but of pleasure, and companionship, and comfort. It moved off the man's chest, allowing him to sit up.

Now that if felt safe, the wolf was once again overwhelmed by its grief, and it threw back its head and howled. And the man wrapped his arms around the wolf without hesitation or fear, murmuring soothingly, "Oh, Ash, my dear Ash, it's all right; I'm here."

The wolf howled and howled, while the man held it and petted it and whispered soothing words until finally, it was too exhausted to howl any longer, and it lay down, letting its head fall onto the man's lap. The man continued to whisper soothingly, and his fingers stroked the wolf's fur, starting on the top of its head and running down its back, occasionally pausing to scratch behind its ears. A contented little growl escaped from the wolf's throat, and its tail waved lazily, brushing against the dirt floor of the cave.

The wolf grew drowsy and its pain ebbed, and it was content to just lie there, head pillowed comfortably on the man's lap, with gentle fingers petting and scratching it. It did not know how long it lay there, although it seemed like a long time to the wolf, and then a voice called out anxiously from outside the cave, "Tsubasa, are you all right? Is Ash all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine, Remus," the man called back. "He recognizes me, I think; he won't hurt me. But..." The man's voice grew distressed, and the wolf blinked and looked up at him. "He's still in wolf form, and it doesn't seem like he's going to change back anytime soon. I...I'm afraid that he may have forgotten that he's really a man, and he could be trapped in his wolf form. Such things happen occasionally among my people."

The voice from outside the cave said, "Seiji, the leader of the Japanese werewolves, told me that sometimes a traumatic event, like the death of a mate or child, can cause a werewolf to lose his or her desire to remain human. And Animagi can forget what it's like to be human if they remain in their animal forms for too long."

"So what should we do?" a female voice asked. "We can't bring him to the Ministry like this; Dawlish will lock him up for sure!"

"Maybe I should come in and try to talk to him," the authoritative voice of the pack leader said. "And if necessary, give him a good cuff or two. I think he'll recognize me as pack leader even in human form, and his bite can't hurt me."

"But it can hurt me," the man said. "If you startle him, he might lash out and bite or scratch me without meaning to, and besides, the cave isn't really big enough to hold three people, anyway."

"Well then, what should we do?" the pack leader growled in frustration.

"Keep talking to him, Tsubasa," the first voice urged. "Call him back to you. You're his mate; I think he'll answer your call."

"I'm not..." The man's voice trailed off.

"You may not have made any verbal commitments to each other," the other voice said gently. "But I think that the wolf, in its heart, recognizes you as its mate."

"Ash," the man said hesitantly, his hand pausing in its petting and scratching to rest on top of the wolf's head. "Ash, you need to remember that you're a man as well as a wolf. Come back to us."

"You need to speak with more conviction," the pack leader said sharply. "In its primal state, the wolf understands emotions more than it does words, and it won't respond to anything so halfhearted."

The man cursed under his breath, muttering something about baring his heart in front of strangers, and the wolf whined uneasily, responding to the anger in his voice. Then the man sighed and gently cradled the wolf's head in his hands, raising it off his lap so that he could look directly into the wolf's eyes. 

"Ash," the man said, with more urgency this time. "Ash, please come back to us. Please...come back to _me!_ I..." The man's voice faltered and cracked. "I need you," he whispered. "Come back to me, Ash."

The wolf whined and pulled its head out of his grasp, dropping back down onto the man's lap so that it would not have to see the pleading, almost accusing look in his eyes. It laid back its ears, but it could not shut out the man's voice, which continued to call out, "Ash, come back to me, Ash," over and over again.

The wolf whined again. It vaguely knew that the word the man kept repeating--"Ash"--was its name, or rather, the name that belonged to the human part of it. But "Ash" did not want to remember that he was a man; it was Ash's grief that the wolf had been howling, and it was that grief that had caused Ash to surrender control of his mind and body, allowing the wolf to become dominant.

But human thoughts were beginning to stir in the wolf's mind, filling it with a sense of anxiety, causing it to whimper and whine. Meanwhile, the man continued to call out Ash's name, with increasing franticness, until he was outright sobbing, "Ash! Ash, please, please come back to me! Please come back to me, Ash; I need you! Please, Ash, please..."

Something warm and wet fell onto the wolf's face, and its tongue automatically darted out to lick away the moisture, which tasted of salt...not sweat this time, but tears. The man...Tsubasa...was weeping. The wolf raised its head to lick Tsubasa's face, wiping the tears away with its tongue.

Instead of being comforted, Tsubasa began to cry even harder, wrapping his arms tightly around the wolf, burying his face in the thick ruff of fur around its neck, calling out its name in a muffled voice.

The wolf howled in pain as its bones began to twist and crack as its body reshaped itself, and the howl gradually shifted into a human groan. But Tsubasa continued to hold on to Ash tightly, not once letting go of him as he transformed from wolf to human.

"Tsubasa," Ash croaked in a hoarse voice; the word felt strange coming out of his throat, as if he had forgotten how to speak during the short time that he had been a wolf.

"Ash!" Tsubasa exclaimed, pulling back to stare at Ash's face with a look of incredulous joy, as if he could not believe that Ash was really human. Then he kissed Ash soundly and embraced him again.

"I'm sorry," Ash whispered, the salty-sweet taste of tears still lingering on his lips.

And then Snape called out, in his typically sarcastic voice, "Professor Tsubasa? Are you still alive in there? Ow! What was that for, Lupin?"

"Behave yourself, Severus," Lupin said sternly. "Tsubasa, Ash, are you all right?"

"Yes," Tsubasa laughed in a shaky voice, drying his face on the sleeve of his kimono. "I'm fine, and so is Ash."

They crawled out of the cave and were greeted with looks of relief on the faces of their companions, except for Snape, who was scowling as he crouched down to rub his shin. He glared accusingly at his mate, but Lupin just smiled back at him unrepentantly.

"Are you both all right?" Lukas asked anxiously. "Tsubasa, you haven't been bitten or scratched?"

"I'm fine," Tsubasa repeated. "The wolf did not harm me, not even the slightest scratch, and there is no chance at all that I've been infected."

"Good," Lukas said, and without warning, pulled back his right arm and punched Tsubasa in the face. Tsubasa cried out, stumbling backwards as he clutched at his face with one hand, thin streams of blood trickling out from between his fingers.

Lupin quickly darted forward to catch Tsubasa by the arm, steadying him and helping him regain his balance, and Ash snarled and lunged forward at Lukas. To attack his pack leader was something that Ash would have considered unthinkable a day, or even an hour before, but the wolf went into a blind rage at the sight of its mate being attacked.

He caught Lukas off-guard, knocking him off his feet, and the two of them rolled around on the ground, striking and kicking and clawing at each other. The others began shouting at them to stop, but both werewolves ignored them. Ash felt a stinging pain as Lukas's fingernails raked across his cheek, and he struck back, splitting open his pack leader's lip. Lukas lifted his arm, whether to attack or defend was not clear, but Ash did not wait to find out, and sank his teeth into the other man's forearm. Lukas howled with pain and brought up his knee sharply into Ash's stomach, knocking the breath out of him.

"ENOUGH!" Snape shouted. "Incarcerous!"

Two sets of ropes flew out of Snape's wand; one of them wrapped around Ash, and the other wrapped around Lukas, binding them and pulling them apart from each other. The Potions Master looked down at the struggling werewolves and said coolly, "Now, do you think that the two of you can stop trying to kill each other long enough to listen to reason?"

Tsubasa stepped into view; his nose looked a little crooked, and blood was still trickling out of his nostrils, but he didn't seem to be seriously injured. "Lukas was angry with me, and rightfully so," he said. "I rushed in without thinking and put both you and myself in danger. If you had harmed me, it would have given Dawlish an excuse to arrest you, maybe even execute you. If I had been thinking straight, I would have let Lukas or Remus go in the cave to help you, since a werewolf's bite can't hurt them, but I was thinking with my heart, not my head." He smiled at Ash, in a slightly rueful, but also tender manner. 

"Damn right," Lukas growled, but he had stopped struggling, and no longer seemed quite so angry.

"So don't be mad at Lukas; he was only defending his beloved pack brother," Tsubasa continued.

"Are the two of you going to behave?" Snape asked sourly. Lukas and Ash both nodded, and Snape flicked his wand at them, and the ropes vanished.

Ash bowed his head and mumbled, "Sorry, I was an idiot."

"Yes, you were," Lukas said affectionately, and boxed him on the ear. Ash winced slightly, but accepted the blow without complaint.

"I'll never understand werewolves," Shacklebolt muttered, shaking his head.

"You should try living with one," Snape said dryly.

"And Lukas, you shouldn't be so hard on Ash," Lupin gently chided. "It's only natural for a wolf to defend its mate, after all." 

Tsubasa blushed, and so did Ash. "I suppose so," Lukas conceded, with a smile that managed to be both annoyed and amused at the same time.

"I think your nose is broken," Lupin said, giving Tsubasa a concerned look. "But I'm sure that Madam Pomfrey will be able to heal it."

"And fix up your handsome face as good as new," Tonks added, winking at Tsubasa. "So that your many admirers won't be devastated."

"My tengu friends always said that I was too pretty for my own good, anyway," Tsubasa chuckled.

"While Professor Tsubasa is getting his nose fixed, we need to get you back to the Ministry," Shacklebolt told Ash impatiently. "Dawlish is convinced that you ran off because you're guilty, and if you don't come in of your own accord soon, he's going to issue a warrant for your arrest."

"I'll go with you," Tsubasa instantly said.

"But--" Lupin said, but Tsubasa waved off his protests. 

"My nose can wait; I want to stay with Ash," he said, sounding as fiercely protective as any of Ash's pack brothers or sisters. 

There were times in the past when Ash had feared his wolf-self, but as a wolf, he had never felt weak. That was one comfort amidst all the disadvantages of being a werewolf, at least to a child who had always been at the rather dubious mercy of others before he had been accepted into Lukas's pack. The wolf was strong and dangerous, and Lukas had taught a young Ash how to fight and defend himself, until he had grown into a man nearly as dangerous as the wolf.

But Ash did not feel strong right now. He felt small, and humbled, and deeply ashamed of himself. He had no idea what he had done to deserve Tsubasa's loyalty, that the crane man should risk his life to call him back to humanity after the way he had treated Tsubasa.

"Here," Snape said, pulling a vial out of his pocket and handing it to Tsubasa. "I usually keep a bit of healing potion or salve on hand, since the students at Hogwarts are always coming up with new ways to injure themselves, not to mention blow up my classroom."

"You're always prepared, Severus," Lupin said admiringly.

"One of us has to be," Snape replied condescendingly. Harry glared at him, but Lupin just laughed and smiled at his lover fondly.

Tsubasa accepted the vial and swallowed its contents, and within seconds, the bleeding stopped and his nose seemed to straighten itself. He gingerly touched it, and judging by the way he winced, it still felt a bit tender.

"You should probably have Pomfrey heal you completely when you get back, but that will at least start the process," Snape said. He gave both Ash and Tsubasa a disapproving frown. "And you should probably clean yourselves up before you go to the Ministry--and you, too, Diggory. Dawlish will probably arrest you on the spot if you show up looking like that."

Ash belatedly realized that his robes, like Tsubasa's and Lukas's, were rumpled and covered with dirt, not to mention spatters of blood. Tsubasa's face and hand were also covered with blood, and quite a few wolf hairs clung to his clothing. They exchanged sheepish looks, and cast a few quick cleaning spells, making themselves more-or-less presentable. Fortunately, werewolves healed quickly; the scratches on Ash's face were already fading. Lukas's lip was still a bit swollen, although the torn flesh had fused back together, and a bit of healing salve provided by Snape made the swelling go down.

"If Dawlish hears that Ash turned into a wolf..." Harry said uneasily, and everyone's gaze seemed to shift to John Zeller; Ash had not even realized that his former friend had been present until that moment.

"I won't say anything to Mr. Dawlish," John said quietly. "If he asks, I'll just say that Master Ethan came to grieve at his childhood hiding place, which is true enough." He turned to look at Ash, and his eyes were filled with sorrow and guilt. "I owe you that much, at least."

"You owe him that, and a hell of a lot more," Lukas growled.

"Yes," John agreed. "I am truly sorry, Ethan, that I didn't protect you when you were a child."

Ash was too weary to feel any of the old resentment and anger right now. "Ethan is dead," he said in a hollow voice. "He died in the werewolf attack, and was reborn in the slums of Knockturn Alley as Ash. Ethan no longer exists."

"Come," Tonks said gently, taking his hand. "We must return to the Ministry." 

Tsubasa rather possessively took hold of Ash's other hand, which pleased the wolf, dormant for the moment, but still present inside him. He was too tired to Apparate, so he let Tonks and Tsubasa Apparate him along with them, and John's troubled gaze was the last thing he saw before he vanished.

Back at the Ministry, Dawlish was indeed in a fury. Morrigan De Lacy was there, and so was Arthur Weasley, trying to calm him down and prevent him from sending out the Hit Wizards. Ash let the Auror rant and rave for a few minutes, but he knew that he was too exhausted to go through a lengthy interrogation, so he finally interrupted and said, "If I swear under Truth Potion that I didn't murder my parents, will that be good enough for you, Dawlish?"

Both Dawlish and Morrigan seemed taken aback. "Well..." Dawlish said.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Mr. Randolf?" Morrigan asked.

"I just want this to be over with," Ash replied wearily.

"It's uncommon, but there are ways that people can get around Truth Potion," Dawlish said, but he sounded unsure of himself, and no longer certain of Ash's guilt.

"Really?" Harry asked, sounding startled.

Snape nodded, giving the boy another one of those condescending looks. "If a wizard is prepared, he can cast a spell to close up his throat to avoid swallowing the potion, or Transfigure it into a harmless substance, although that requires a degree of skill that most wizards lack. Occlumency can also be used to foil the effects of the Truth Potion, but again, it requires a great deal of skill, and the wizard must be able to shield himself before the potion enters his system. However, if you take away Randolf's wand, he won't be able to cast any spells. Someone very talented in Occlumency can practice it without a wand, to a limited degree, but as Randolf was never formally educated at Hogwarts or any other school, I doubt that he would have had the chance to learn Occlumency at all. Therefore, the potion should prove effective on him, in my professional opinion as a Potions Master."

"Very well," Dawlish agreed reluctantly.

"Since my client is taking the Truth Potion voluntarily, I want you to agree in advance that you will only question him about the murders, and not about any other crimes that he might have committed in the past," Morrigan said sternly.

"That seems fair enough," Arthur said pleasantly, and Dawlish scowled, but nodded his agreement.

Under the Minister's watchful eye, Dawlish kept his promise, and the interrogation was over quickly, with Ash confirming that he had no part in the murders, nor any prior knowledge of them.

"There!" Arthur said cheerfully. "Now that Ash's innocence has been proven, you can rule him out and concentrate on other suspects."

Dawlish scowled, but did not point out to the Minister that he had no other suspects to focus on. "You can go for now, Randolf," he said grudgingly, handing Ash back his wand. "But I'll be keeping an eye on you, so don't travel far."

"He'll be at Hogwarts with me," Tsubasa said coolly, taking Ash by the arm and leading him towards the Floo. Dawlish raised his eyebrows while Tonks giggled and Lupin grinned. Tsubasa ignored them and cast a handful of Floo Powder into the fireplace, and they stepped through the green flames and emerged in a room that appeared to be Tsubasa's personal quarters at the school.

"Stay with me, at least until this mess is over," Tsubasa said, and his tone of voice, gentle but firm, seemed to make it half a request and half an order. Ash nodded meekly in response. Tsubasa took off his swords and set them aside, then with a weary sigh, sank down onto a couch that sat in front of the fireplace. Ash cautiously knelt down on the floor at his feet, feeling uncertain of his welcome despite Tsubasa's invitation.

Tsubasa gave him a bemused look and patted a cushion on the couch, saying, "You can sit here beside me, if you like." Ash just shook his head, and then laid his head down on Tsubasa's lap. After a moment's hesitation, Tsubasa began to stroke his hair, as gently and soothingly as he had petted the wolf back in the cave, and a little growl of contentment escaped Ash's lips.

They remained like that for several minutes, the silence punctuated by only a few quiet growls, until finally Ash whispered, "I'm sorry. I treated you badly, and yet you still came to me when I was in trouble. You risked your life to call me back and make me human again, when I might have been lost to the wolf forever otherwise. Thank you, and...I'm sorry."

"I should apologize, too," Tsubasa said quietly, still stroking Ash's hair.

"Apologize?" Ash asked, startled. "What for?"

"You kept pushing me away from you, but I was holding you at arm's length, too," Tsubasa replied. "But it was easier for me to put the blame on you and tell myself that it was all your fault."

"I don't understand," Ash said.

"Do you remember how I told you that my father tried to drown both himself and me after my mother died?"

"Yes, but you said that you'd forgiven him for that."

"I did forgive him," Tsubasa said quietly. "But I have never forgotten. The crane folk believe passionately in true love that lasts until death, and even beyond. But ever since that day, I think I have been afraid to fall in love. The thought of loving someone so much that I would kill not just myself, but my own child, is terrifying to me, although I haven't really admitted it to myself until now. It was easy to take only casual lovers, telling myself that I hadn't yet met the right person--until I met you. I began to realize that I could love you that much if I let myself, and that scared me. So when you pushed me away, I was sincerely angry and hurt, but also secretly relieved."

Ash barked out a laugh--a harsh, mirthless sound. "So we're both pretty screwed up, huh?"

"So it would seem," Tsubasa replied, with a faint, sad smile, still running his fingers through Ash's hair. They fell silent again, but after a few minutes, Tsubasa asked hesitantly, "Ash...?"

"Hmm?" Ash replied drowsily. His life was a mess, and he didn't know what was going to happen between himself and Tsubasa, but still, his inner wolf felt safe and content, comforted by the gentle touch of Tsubasa's hand.

"Why didn't you attack me in the cave? Did you know it was me?"

Ash frowned, trying to recall what the wolf had been thinking, although its memories seemed blurred and hazy to his human self. "Your scent seemed familiar to the wolf, but there was something more...it hesitated, because you don't smell entirely human."

"Really?"

"Yes, I noticed it when I first met you, although I couldn't quite put my finger on what exactly was different, but it's clearer to the wolf, who has a much keener sense of smell. To the wolf, you smell like flight, and the wind, and freedom. Like...well, like a bird, I suppose."

"Well, I am a bird, in a sense, so I guess that's only natural," Tsubasa said, sounding amused. His fingers gently rubbed behind Ash's ears, as if he were still a wolf, and Ash shivered with pleasure.

"The wolf has wanted you as its mate ever since I first laid eyes on you," Ash whispered hoarsely. "That day in the classroom, the last time I saw you, it was angry and impatient. Not with you, but with me. It couldn't figure out what the hell I was waiting for. It was so strong that it just overwhelmed me...maybe because I secretly wanted the same thing that the wolf wanted." He shivered again, with both fear and desire. "But I could have hurt you, Tsubasa."

Tsubasa's hand stilled for a moment, then resumed stroking Ash's hair. "No, I don't think so," Tsubasa said slowly. "The wolf was in complete control earlier back in the cave, not even under the influence of Wolfsbane Potion, and still, you didn't harm me. If you wouldn't hurt me under those circumstances, I don't think that you would hurt me at all."

"I suppose," Ash muttered doubtfully, not feeling anywhere near as confident about that. There were different ways of hurting people, and not all of them left visible scars. "So...what are we going to do now?"

"Well, I suppose that we will have to learn to live together," Tsubasa replied, smiling at him a little sadly, and a little anxiously. "Since we don't seem to be able to live apart."

Ash wasn't sure how they were going to manage that, but he didn't argue, and eventually fell asleep there on Tsubasa's lap, lulled into slumber by his mate's caresses.

*** 

"Ash?" Tsubasa murmured, but the werewolf was sound asleep. No doubt he was exhausted after everything he'd been through. "Let's put you to bed, then," Tsubasa said with a tender smile, drawing his wand from his pocket. "Mobilicorpus." Ash stirred slightly, but did not wake as his body levitated into the air. Tsubasa guided the sleeping werewolf into the bedroom, gently lowered him down onto the bed, undressed him, and tucked him under the covers.

"Sleep well, my precious wolf," Tsubasa whispered, pressing his lips against Ash's forehead. He sent a brief message to the Headmaster, asking him to cancel the rest of his classes for the day, and then he crawled into bed with Ash. The werewolf seemed to sense his presence, even in his sleep, and automatically moved closer, resting his head against Tsubasa's chest and wrapping an arm around his waist. Tsubasa wrapped his arms around Ash, returning the embrace, and for the first time in his life, he felt whole, as if he had found a piece of himself that he hadn't realized he was missing until now. Tears filled his eyes, and his heart was filled to bursting with equal amounts of joy and terror.

"I think I can understand now how you felt, Father," he whispered, but he wasn't sure that was a good thing. He didn't think that he would kill himself if something happened to Ash, but the loss of his friend...his mate...would leave an emptiness inside him that he wasn't sure could ever be filled.

Ash, at least, was sleeping soundly, his features relaxed and content in a way that Tsubasa had never seen when he was awake. He sighed and gently kissed the scar on Ash's face, and despite his worries, eventually drifted off to sleep as well.

*** 

Ash didn't know how long he slept, but it was dark when he awoke to the sound of arguing voices, although light from the drawing room spilled in through the half-open door of the bedroom. He noticed that there was a depression next to him in the mattress, and when he reached out to touch the sheets, he noticed that they were still warm, as if the bed had only just been recently vacated.

"...needs him now!" a woman's voice was saying angrily.

"And I said that he's resting!" Tsubasa retorted in a hushed voice. "He's been through a lot--he's had to deal with his estranged family, and been falsely accused as a suspect in his parents' murders, not to mention the fact that he was forced to view their mutilated bodies!"

"Well, Miss Madley has been through a lot, too!" the woman snapped, not making any attempt to be quiet, although Tsubasa hissed at her to keep her voice down. "Both of her parents have been murdered in the space of a month, and she's now an orphan! She's in hysterics, and she wants to see her brother!"

"I'm very sorry for Miss Madley, but my first priority is Ash's well-being," Tsubasa said implacably. 

"And mine is Laura's!" the woman shot back.

Well, he clearly wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep, so Ash sighed and climbed out of bed. He discovered that he was clad only in his underwear, but he found his clothes draped neatly across a nearby chair, and quickly got dressed.

"What's going on?" he asked as he walked into the drawing room, combing his fingers through his hair.

Tsubasa turned towards him, giving him a concerned look. His clothes were wrinkled, as if he'd slept in them, and his hair was unbound, freed from its usual topknot, hanging loose down to his waist. He looked tired, rumpled, worried, and angry--and absolutely beautiful. The woman that he was arguing with was a short, stout witch with gray hair and a stern expression on her face. "Are you Ash Randolf?" she demanded

"Yes," Ash replied cautiously. "Who's asking?"

"Professor Pomona Sprout, Head of Hufflepuff," the woman replied curtly. "I'm Laura Madley's Head of House. The news of her father's murder, coming so soon after her mother's, has left her understandably distraught. She's been asking for you."

"But I barely know her," Ash protested. "I only just met her last month, and we didn't exactly part on good terms."

"I know," Sprout said impatiently, "but you're all the family she has left."

"But what about her grandparents, or has something happened to them as well?" Ash asked, suddenly wondering if they might have been killed while he was sleeping. No, surely not, or it would be Dawlish showing up on Tsubasa's doorstep looking for him, not this professor. "And my moth...I mean, Rosalind had a brother, and cousins, if I'm not mistaken..."

"The Parkers refuse to have anything to do with Laura," Sprout said disgustedly, but her anger didn't seem to be directed at him. "They're afraid that the murderer will come after them next if they take in Laura as they should, as her next-of-kin."

"But what about my...her father's parents?" Ash asked, feeling confused. He remembered the elder Madleys as kind people, who had treated their step-grandson as if he were their own flesh and blood. Surely they wouldn't turn their backs on Laura.

Sprout's expression softened, and she gave him an almost sympathetic look. "You didn't know? No, I suppose you wouldn't, since you've been out of touch with your family. Laura's paternal grandparents were killed in a car crash about two years ago." She shuddered. "I never thought those Muggle contraptions were safe; I can't imagine how anyone could ride in them." She shook her head, as if to clear her thoughts. "Anyway, there are no relatives left who are willing to take Laura in, let alone comfort her, poor child." She glared at Ash and said in a steely voice, "So go see your sister, Mr. Randolf. Whatever her parents may have done to wrong you, she is innocent and had no part in it."

Ash took a deep breath, then said, "Very well."

"Are you sure, Ash?" Tsubasa asked anxiously, laying a comforting hand on his arm. "You don't have to do this."

"Yes, he does!" Sprout insisted.

"It's all right," Ash told Tsubasa. "I need to do this." It wasn't something that he particularly wanted to do, but for the first time, he felt a kind of kinship with Laura. He remembered what it had felt like to be all alone, when he had been living in Knockturn Alley as a runaway child before Lukas had taken him in. He remembered how lonely and miserable and frightened he had felt, and he had been a much less sheltered child than Laura. 

He at least had his pack now, even if his blood relatives had betrayed him, and he even had a few friends outside the pack who cared enough to come looking for him today, to help him avoid being arrested: Tonks, Shacklebolt, Harry, and Lupin and Snape. Well, maybe Snape didn't count, since he had probably only come along for Lupin's sake, but still, whatever his reasons, he had shown up to help.

And of course there was Tsubasa, who was something more than a friend, but not quite a lover. Yet. But that was something they would have to work out later.

Tsubasa gazed into his eyes, and must have been reassured by what he saw there, because he relaxed slightly. "If you're sure, then," he said. "Do you want me to come with you?"

Ash hesitated, then replied, "No," although he would have liked Tsubasa's company. "I think I should talk to her alone."

Tsubasa smiled at him, still looking a little concerned, but also approving. He embraced Ash and gave him a quick kiss, murmuring, "I'll wait here, then. But you can call me through the Floo if you need me."

Sprout seemed unfazed; either Snape and Lupin had accustomed the Hogwarts staff to gay relationships, or she was too concerned about her student to be shocked. In any case, all she said was, "Come along, then," in a brisk, but not unkind voice.

Ash expected her to lead him to the dormitories, but instead she led him down the corridor to her own quarters, which looked much the same as Tsubasa's, except that it was filled with potted plants, and plants hanging from the ceiling in baskets. Laura was curled up on the couch, hugging her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth and weeping inconsolably.

"Miss Madley," Sprout said softly as they entered the room, and Laura looked up. Her eyes were red from crying, and her eyelids were puffy and swollen, as if she'd been crying for hours.

"Ash!" she shouted, then jumped up from the couch and ran over and flung her arms around him. A little startled by the strength of her reaction, Ash awkwardly returned the embrace, wrapping his arms around her gingerly. One thing that he was pleasantly surprised by, though, was that she had called him "Ash" instead of "Ethan". It made him feel a little better, as if Laura was finally beginning to see his real self, instead of the imaginary brother she had created in her daydreams.

Sprout patted him on the shoulder, regarding him in a much more friendly manner than she had earlier, and said, "Just treat her as if she were a member of your family...a member of your pack. I'll give the two of you some privacy now, but I'll be right in the next room if Laura needs me." Then she quietly slipped into the next room--presumably, the bedroom, if her quarters were laid out in the same manner as Tsubasa's--and closed the door.

He hadn't expected an ordinary human to understand how a wolf felt, but Sprout's advice was surprisingly helpful. He thought about how Lukas had comforted him as a child, when he had first been taken into the pack, and of how, over the years, he had comforted and been comforted by his pack brothers and sisters for various reasons--failed jobs, failed romances, estrangements from their families. He remembered how he had once consoled Celine when she had come home in tears because the neighborhood children refused to play with the daughter of a werewolf. 

His arms folded around her in a more natural embrace now, holding her tightly, and he murmured, "Shh, little sister, it's all right. I know things seem horrible right now, but they will get better, I promise."

Laura clung to Ash, sobbing incoherently against his chest, and he let her. He held her and made soothing noises every now and then--much as Tsubasa had done for him, he thought with a touch of ironic amusement. After awhile, her cries began to taper off into little gasps and whimpers, and she sagged in his arms, as if she were about to faint, so Ash sat down on the couch, still cradling Laura in his arms. 

"I'm sorry," she sniffled. "I accused you of lying, but all those things you said about Mother and Father were true, weren't they?"

"Yes," Ash replied softly. This time he felt no triumph at having forced his half-sister to see the truth, only pity. "But I'm sorry, too, for the things I said to you. I was angry at them, but I took it out on you, and that was wrong."

"Thank you for coming to see me," Laura whispered. "I know I shouldn't have bothered you. I'm a stranger to you, after all, and Mother and Father...well, I know you have reason to hate them. But...but...I couldn't think of anyone else to call! I'm sorry!"

She began to weep again, and Ash gently stroked her hair and said, "It's all right; I don't mind."

"You...don't hate me for mourning them?" Laura asked hesitantly, tears trickling down her face. By now, her eyelids were swollen nearly shut, and it must have been physically painful for her to weep. "I know they were cruel to you, but they're my parents and I can't help loving them..."

"I know," Ash said quietly. "I didn't want to, but I couldn't help grieving for Father, too. He was the first person who was ever kind to me, even if he was only using me to get closer to Rosalind. I hated him, but when I was a child, I loved him. I tried so hard to be a good son to him." He smiled sadly, with just a touch of bitterness. "Do you remember that book of fairy tales you brought with you? I was so happy to be adopted that I wrote my new name in all of my books."

"I'm so sorry, Ash," Laura whispered. "I don't know why Father did what he did. I wish we could have grown up together as brother and sister."

Ash shrugged. "It's not your fault. Things between Rosalind and Madley were...complicated. Looking back, I think he knew all along that she didn't really love him, but as long as she was grateful, he was content." He fell silent for a moment, realizing for the first time that he and his stepfather had been alike in that respect, both willing to accept the pretense of love in lieu of the real thing. "But Rosalind couldn't forget that she'd married beneath herself, so she resented him, and he resented her, and you and I got caught up in the middle of that mess." 

"I'm all alone now, aren't I?" Laura asked in a trembling voice. "Mother and Father are dead, and Mother's family doesn't want anything to do with me. We've never been close, anyway, because they don't like Father. And Grandma and Grandpa Madley are gone..."

"I was sorry to hear that," Ash replied quietly. "I liked them; they always treated me like their own grandchild. But you're not alone, Laura; I'm here. And since you're my sister, that means my pack are all your brothers and sisters, too."

"Your pack?" Laura asked.

Ash nodded. "They're my family--my true family, even if we're not related by blood. We've all pledged to be brothers and sisters to each other, and none of them have ever betrayed me."

"Can I still be part of your pack if I'm human?" Laura asked shyly.

"Of course," Ash said firmly. "We're not like the purebloods, who only care about pedigrees. If I claim you as family, then my pack will accept you as family as well. Besides, not everyone in the pack is a werewolf. In fact, I think my 'little sister' Celine is in your House. She's human, but she's part of the pack because her father is a werewolf."

"That's right, I nearly forgot!" Laura exclaimed, her expression brightening slightly. "So does that mean that Celine will be my little sister, too?"

"Yes," Ash replied with a smile. "She'll be thrilled to have an older sister. The other children in the pack are much younger than her, and she's often wished to have a sibling closer to her own age."

"Is...is it really all right with you, though?" Laura stammered nervously. "Th-that I'm your sister now?"

"Yes," Ash replied, filled with a sudden feeling of tenderness for his half-sister. He didn't know why his feelings had shifted so quickly; perhaps it was because she was now an orphan and an outcast, much like the werewolves. Or maybe because he was beginning to see that her resemblance to their mother was only superficial. The shape of her face was similar to Rosalind's, as was the color of her hair and eyes, but there was a kindness and concern in her hazel eyes that had never been present in Rosalind's, who had never cared for anyone but herself.

"Yes, little sister," Ash said, planting a gentle kiss on the top of her head. Laura sighed and leaned forward, resting against his chest again, and after a few minutes, she seemed to doze off.

The bedroom door opened and Sprout peered out from behind it, then tiptoed out into the drawing room. "She's all worn out, poor child," Sprout whispered, smiling sadly down at Laura in a maternal manner. "She might as well sleep here tonight; that way I can be on hand if she wakes up in the middle of the night needing a shoulder to cry on." She motioned for Ash to stand up, and he obeyed, lifting Laura in his arms as he did so. Sprout Transfigured the couch into a bed, and Ash laid his sister down on it.

Laura stirred slightly as Sprout gently applied some healing salve to her reddened, swollen eyelids and then pulled the covers up over her. "Don't go," Laura protested sleepily, reaching out for Ash.

"Don't worry, dear," Sprout said kindly. "Mr. Randolf is staying in the castle, and you can see him again tomorrow morning."

"Yes, that's right," Ash confirmed, squeezing Laura's outstretched hand reassuringly. "I'm staying with my friend, Professor Tsubasa, in the teacher's quarters. He...um...thought it would be safer for me to stay in the castle with him until the murders are solved."

"Oh," Laura said, relaxing again, although she did not let go of his hand.

"But I'll stay here with you until you fall asleep," Ash said. "And I'll stop by again in the morning before I go to work." 

_Assuming I still have a job,_ he added silently in his mind. But although Dawlish still seemed a little suspicious of him, his Veritaserum-confirmed declaration of innocence should serve to keep him employed and, more importantly, out of Azkaban, at least for the moment.

Laura smiled at him, as sweetly and trustingly as any of the pack children, then closed her eyes, still clinging to his hand. Soon her breathing grew slow and even, and her grip slackened as she fell asleep. Ash carefully pulled his hand free and headed for the door.

"Thank you, Mr. Randolf," Sprout said softly as he left.

Ash paused to nod in acknowledgment and smile wryly. The Professor reminded him a bit of Matilda, with her gray hair and her no-nonsense manner. The way she had treated Laura--gentle and yet fiercely protective--was reminiscent of a mother wolf, too. "Celine says that she was glad to be put in Hufflepuff House, because Hufflepuffs are loyal to each other like wolves. Thank you for reminding me that Laura is part of my pack."

Sprout smiled warmly and nodded back at him, and Ash left the room and returned to Tsubasa's quarters. His friend greeted him with a quizzical look, staring intently into his eyes, then smiled with relief. "You seem at peace with yourself, Ash," Tsubasa observed.

"I am," Ash replied, a little surprised to realize that it was true, despite the turmoil that his life was in. "Thanks to you."

"I'm glad," Tsubasa said, reaching up to stroke Ash's cheek, running his fingers lightly along the scar that ran across his face.

Ash sighed, leaning into the caress, for once not bothered by the reminder of his disfigurement. The wolf, as always, was present within him, but he felt none of the violent lust that had so troubled him before. Instead, it was utterly content and meek, as tame as a lapdog, and Ash smiled at that mental image, recalling how happy the wolf had been to rest its head on Tsubasa's lap. He turned his head slightly to brush his lips against Tsubasa's fingers and whispered, "Thank you."

"The pleasure is all mine," Tsubasa whispered back, and lowered his hand, replacing it with his mouth, his lips pressing tenderly against Ash's.

*** 

"Here are the scrolls you requested, Professor, and today's mail delivery," Imogen said, laying the items down on Bletchley's desk. The scrolls were ancient documents from the museum's archive that Bletchley had requested for his research, and Imogen noticed that one of the letters was from Theodore Snape-formerly-Nott. Imogen hoped that she might learn what it contained if she lingered in Bletchley's office for a bit, although it was probably merely innocuous correspondence about the Irish artifacts.

Still, she wanted to gather as much information about the Snapes as she could, because you never knew what might prove useful in the future, and besides, she also wanted to find out if the medallion that Bletchley was researching really was a device to control a werewolf's transformation. There was the Wolfsbane Potion, of course, but it would be so much easier not to have to brew the complicated potion every month. Perhaps someday, after they rose to power, she would claim it as a reward for their pet werewolf, Greyback.

"Please call me 'Henry,' Imogen," Bletchley said with a friendly smile. "I've told you before that I'm not really a Professor."

Imogen smiled back at him with feigned shyness. Bletchley had felt sorry for her after Shacklebolt had practically accused her of being a Death Eater spy, and he had gone out of his way to treat her kindly ever since. He was suprisingly softhearted for a Slytherin, but Imogen intended to take full advantage of that, and had been working to cultivate his goodwill by pretending to be grateful for his kindness.

"Yes, Henry," she murmured, giving him another quick, shy smile before casting her eyes down demurely. "How is your research going?"

"It's going very well," Bletchley replied. "Perhaps even better after I hear what Master Tremayne has to say." He opened the letter from Theodore, and looked a little disappointed. "Ah, it seems they haven't broken the code yet. But Theodore says that he thinks they're close to it, so I suppose that's good news."

"Very good news, Prof...Henry," Imogen said politely. They chatted about his research for several minutes; like most scholars, he loved nothing better than to talk about his work, and she suspected that he took a secret pleasure in deliberately going against Shacklebolt's wishes. Maybe he was a true Slytherin, after all. Imogen acted properly attentive, showing enough interest to be flattering, but not so much as to arouse suspicion by seeming too interested in Dark Magic artifacts.

The rest of the day went the same as always: boring clerical work carried out under the eyes of the rest of the museum staff, who regarded her with varying degrees of smug superiority, vindictiveness, or pity. After leaving work, she met with her brother and Greyback at the safe house, hoping that Warren's day had proven more fruitful. 

The scowl on her brother's face told her that it had not been. Still, Imogen asked, "Did your contact at the Ministry provide any useful information? There was nothing printed in the Daily Prophet about Ash Randolf being arrested for Alden Madley's murder, nor even a hint that the Aurors are close to making an arrest. But surely he must be their prime suspect? Is Arthur Weasley still protecting him?"

"Not only is he not being arrested, but his name has been cleared!" Warren replied disgustedly.

"What?!" exclaimed Imogen. "How can that be?"

"It seems that Randolf swore under Truth Potion that he had no part in the murders," Warren growled. "And not even Dawlish could argue with that." He glared at Greyback as if this were all the werewolf's fault.

"Don't look at me!" Greyback snapped. "I did my part; I killed both Madleys like you told me to! What else was I supposed to do, write a confession in blood and sign it with Randolf's name?"

"That might not have been a bad idea," Warren muttered.

"That would serve no purpose," Imogen pointed out coolly. "They would be able to tell that it wasn't Randolf's handwriting."

"I hope that your day went better than mine, sister dear," Warren sighed.

"Not really, although I'm cultivating an ally in Henry Bletchley," Imogen replied. She laughed scornfully. "It's easy enough with such a softhearted fool; all I have to do is look meek and sad, and bat my eyelashes a little, and he feels sorry for me."

"I'm sure that you have no trouble putting men under your spell, my Lady," Greyback said sardonically. "But of what possible use can this scholar be to us?"

"He is an expert in magical artifacts, with Dark items being his specialty," Imogen replied. "His knowledge could come in useful someday. And his family is trying to marry him off to the Dietrich heiress, in which case he would gain a good deal of political power. It doesn't hurt to plan for the future, Greyback." 

The werewolf shrugged indifferently. "As you say, my Lady."

"Oh, by the way," Imogen added as an afterthought, "one of the artifacts that Bletchley is working on is a medallion that might have the power to control a werewolf's transformation."

"Medallion?" Greyback asked, suddenly snapping to attention, his eyes filled with excitement. "Can you describe it for me?"

Imogen paused to think. "It's made of stone, and engraved with the phases of the moon, and some runes that Bletchley can't read. The Runes Master that Snape's son is apprenticed to says that they're in some sort of code." 

"And by any chance, did this artifact belong to a wizard known as the Dark Prince?" Greyback asked eagerly.

"Why...yes," Imogen replied, startled by the question. The werewolf had never shown any interest in history or archaeology before. 

"The Dark Prince?" Warren asked, sounding puzzled. "Was he a precursor to the Dark Lord?"

"Not quite," Imogen replied. "Like the Dark Lord, no one ever called the Prince by his real name, but for different reasons. People were afraid to speak the Dark Lord's name, while the Dark Prince was afraid to let people know his name, because of the legend that knowing someone's true name gives you power over them. He kept his name a secret, and killed anyone who knew it, even, rumor has it, his own parents. Because no one knew his real name, the locals started calling him the Dark Prince, because he was a powerful Dark Wizard. Unlike our former Master, however, the Dark Prince was less interested in conquering the world than he was in hiding from it. He had many enemies, and he sealed himself up in his tower, which he warded with various magical spells and traps, and it was said to be guarded by many ferocious magical beasts."

"Someone must have gotten through his protections, if his tower was left in ruins," Warren said, smiling cynically. "Somehow I can't picture this Dark Prince dying peacefully of old age."

"Some people say that the tower was destroyed in a duel with another wizard," Imogen said. "And others say that it was due to a magical experiment gone wrong. But either way, the tower was destroyed in a massive explosion, and the remains sunk beneath the earth. The nearby villagers were too terrified to go near the place, and over the years, vegetation grew over the site where the tower had stood. Generations passed, and no one remembered the exact location of the tower, and the tale of the Dark Prince became a legend, a mere footnote in the history books, until the archaeological team uncovered the ruins this summer." Imogen crossed her arms over her chest and gazed at Greyback suspiciously. "So tell me now, Greyback, exactly how you came by the knowledge of an artifact belonging to a long-forgotten Dark Wizard, and what your interest is in it."

Greyback gave her a wide, sharp-toothed grin, looking too excited to be offended. "My late, unlamented Master told me about it years ago, when I was still in his favor. He had read in some old book that the Dark Prince had werewolf servants, and that he had created a device that allowed them to transform at any time of the month."

"What?!" Imogen and Warren exclaimed in chorus.

"According to the book, the Prince used to send his werewolves out to hunt down his enemies, or even just people who wandered too close to the tower for his liking," Greyback continued. "A rare survivor from one of these hunts claimed that he and his party had been attacked by what they had first thought were tame dogs, because they had collars around their necks--collars hung with strange medallions etched with the phases of the moon. 

"By the time that they got close enough to see the medallions, the men realized that the 'dogs' were neither dogs nor tame, but it was too late, except for the one witness who managed to escape while the wolves were busy killing his friends. However, he might as well have been left to the wolves, because when he reached the village and told his story, the villagers put him to death. He had been wounded, you see, a few non-lethal scratches, but the villagers weren't about to take the risk that he would turn into a werewolf himself on the next full moon."

Neither Imogen nor Warren wasted any time feeling sorry for the hapless victim of the Dark Prince's werewolf pack. "So it's more than just the equivalent of the Wolfsbane Potion," Warren said thoughtfully.

"If Greyback's story is true," Imogen added.

Greyback shrugged. "At the time, it was only a story recorded in a book filled with rumors and half-truths. The Dark Lord thought the medallions might really have existed, but he had no idea where the ruins of the Prince's tower were buried. He followed a few leads, but when they all led to dead ends, he decided that it would be more practical to get Snape to invent a potion that would control the transformation."

"Which he did, in a sense, although he didn't share it with the Dark Lord," Imogen said dryly. "But the Wolfsbane Potion merely keeps a werewolf sane during the full moon. The medallion--"

"Would allow me to transform at any time of the month!" Greyback finished. "I've done everything that you two have asked of me, and I want that medallion as my reward!"

Warren scowled at him and said sharply, "Your reward is your freedom, Greyback! If not for us, you'd still be locked up in that sanatorium!"

"The medallion would allow me to be even more useful to you!" Greyback countered. "You said that you wanted me to spread fear through the wizarding world--well, what could be more fearful than a werewolf attacking at any time of the month? You said that Randolf proved his innocence? Well then, I can go on a killing spree and make everyone so scared of werewolves that they'll lock them all up, and they won't care if your dear half-brother is guilty or not!"

Imogen considered Greyback's words carefully. "That is tempting," she agreed reluctantly. "But stealing the medallion would be a great risk, for I would surely be the first one that the Aurors would suspect."

"If you can find a way to get me into the museum, I'll steal it myself!" Greyback declared. "Then you and your brother could go out in public at the time of the theft and create an alibi for yourselves."

"Even so, it will do us no good if you are captured," Imogen cautioned.

"I'm touched by your concern for me, milady," Greyback said with an insolent grin. "But I don't intend to be caught. Remember that I was a Death Eater; I know a thing or two about getting past locks and wards. At least tell me about the security arrangements at the museum, and we can decide whether it would be possible to carry out the theft."

His words were reasonable enough, but there was a determined glint in the werewolf's eyes that said he wasn't going to give up this idea so easily. Imogen could kill him, if necessary, but she hated to throw away such a valuable pawn, especially when they had not yet succeeded in framing Ash Randolf or freeing their father from prison. It might be time to throw their pet werewolf a bone.

"All right, let's go over this carefully," Imogen said as she fetched a pen and a roll of blank parchment, and began sketching a diagram of the museum. "The medallion is kept locked in Henry Bletchley's office, but first you'll need to get into the museum. There are warding spells in these locations. I'm not supposed to, but I know the passwords to bypass most of them."

"Impressive," Greyback said.

Imogen smirked. "It's amazing what you can learn when you remain quiet and keep your eyes and ears open. Besides, the curator was a good friend of my late mother, so she's a bit careless around me."

"What about guards?"

"There is a night guard, but he follows a set patrol route, so you should be able to avoid him if you're careful..."

*** 

"Theo!" Lupin exclaimed as the fireplace burst into green flames and his son stepped into the room just as he and Severus were about to head to the Great Hall for breakfast. "We weren't expecting you, but of course we're always delighted to see you. Would you like to join us for..." His voice trailed off when he saw the worried expression on Theo's face.

"This isn't just a friendly visit," Snape said quietly.

It was more of a statement than a question, but Theodore nodded in reply. "I can't stay long," he said. "I'm on my way to the museum, but I thought I should stop by and tell you what happened first. Master Tremayne and I were finally able to break the code for the medallion inscription." 

"But isn't that good news?" Lupin asked in a puzzled voice.

"It would be, if someone hadn't broken into the museum and stolen the medallion last night," Theodore replied grimly. 

"What?!" Lupin exclaimed. "That's terrible! But why would someone want to steal it, when they couldn't know what it does or how to work it? Did you tell anyone what you discovered?"

Theodore shook his head. "We just finished the translation last night, and haven't had time to tell anyone about it yet. But someone must know, or at least have guessed what the artifact actually is. I have to talk to Henry and the Aurors right away."

"Let me guess," Snape said, his eyes narrowing shrewdly. "The medallion does a little bit more than simply regulate a werewolf's transformation."

"As usual, you are correct, Father. Would you and Remus like to come to the museum with me? I'm afraid the Aurors aren't going to be very happy with what I have to say, and I could use a little moral support."

*** 

"The medallion does WHAT?!" Kingsley roared, and Theodore flinched slightly, while Snape glared at the Auror.

"It isn't his fault, Shacklebolt!" the Potions Master snapped. "If you want to yell at someone, yell at whichever idiot is responsible for the museum's security!"

That in turn provoked a spluttering protest from the museum's Director, until Kingsley impatiently waved at him to be silent.

"Kingsley's not really mad at Theodore, Severus," Tonks said placatingly. "He's just a little upset to hear the bad news."

"To put it mildly," Kingsley muttered, but gave Theodore a strained smile and said, "I didn't mean to take it out on you, though, Mr. Snape."

"It's all right," Theodore said graciously. "I understand that it's shocking news. Master Tremayne and I were surprised, too. I never dreamed that such a thing was possible."

"So the medallion allows a werewolf to transform at any time of the month?" Harry asked incredulously.

"Well, that's what the inscription says it does, anyway," Theodore replied with a shrug. "We have no way of knowing if it really works without testing it, but most of the other artifacts were functional, so..."

"This is a disaster!" the Director wailed.

"But wasn't the medallion damaged?" Lupin asked. "Wouldn't it be useless to whoever stole it?"

"Not necessarily," Henry Bletchley replied, looking troubled. "It radiated a strong magical aura, and tentatively responded to the exploratory spells I cast. There's a good chance that it might still be functional, although using a damaged item is always risky."

"It can't be a coincidence that an item that allows a werewolf to transform at will is stolen just after a series of murders committed by a werewolf," Kingsley said, frowning.

"You're sure that it really was a werewolf who committed the murders?" Lupin asked.

"Well, we're not really sure about Mrs. Abbott," Tonks said. "But the Healers are certain that the Madleys were killed by a werewolf. And Takeshi certainly has no reason to lie about it."

"But even if the murderer was a werewolf, we know that it wasn't Ash!" Harry interjected.

"It doesn't matter, Potter," Snape said impatiently. "The public will see him--and any other werewolf--as a threat unless you bring the killer to justice quickly. And if it becomes known that the medallion was stolen, that will only add to the panic and hysteria." His black eyes flickered over to the Director, who was wringing his hands.

"I don't want the theft publicized any more than you do, Professor," the man protested in a whiny voice. "It's bad publicity for the museum! But I don't see how we can keep it quiet when a guard was murdered..."

Startled, Lupin and Snape turned towards the Aurors, who nodded. "There was a night guard on duty," Tonks explained. "He was found this morning with his neck broken, much like the Aurors who were guarding Alden Madley."

"It doesn't take a werewolf to break a man's neck," Lupin said uncertainly.

"No, but werewolf strength would certainly make it easier," Kingsley said, rubbing his hand against his bald head distractedly. "And only a werewolf would have motive to steal the medallion."

"Was the medallion the only thing stolen?" Snape asked, frowning.

Henry nodded. "There are far more valuable items in the museum, but that was the only thing taken."

"How did the thief break in?" Lupin wanted to know.

"We're not sure," Tonks replied. "The warding spells seem to have been disabled somehow, and he or she used some sort of spell or magical device to break through the physical locks." She pointed at the lock on the office door, which appeared to have been melted.

"Sirius used to have a penknife that would open locks," Lupin said, smiling nostalgically. "It was a child's toy, though. It wouldn't have worked on locks spelled with strong magical wards."

"Almost any ward can be bypassed, through powerful magic or through deception, if one is determined enough," Snape said with a dismissive wave of his hand, and the Director looked offended. "The Death Eaters used to do it all the time. Sometimes they would break the wards magically, and other times they would trick someone into letting them in. What really puzzles me is how the thief discovered the medallion's true properties. Theodore says that he and Tremayne only recently deciphered the runes and told no one else of their findings."

Kingsley looked to Theodore for confirmation, and he nodded. "I swear, we told no one. We only just finished the translation last night, and spoke to no one else about it until Professor Bletchley contacted us this morning to tell us about the theft."

"Could someone perhaps have overheard your conversations or secretly looked at your notes?" Tonks inquired. "A housekeeper, maybe, or another member of the archaeological team?"

"No," Theodore replied firmly. "We left the dig site weeks ago, and have been working in Master Tremayne's home. He's a recluse, and he has no servants, not even a house-elf." He smiled wryly at Lupin. "I've been doing all the cooking and cleaning. He never has visitors, and when he must communicate with the outside world, he does so by owl or mirror, or he sends me in his place, as he did today. He grudgingly admits that taking me on as an apprentice was a good idea, because it means that he can send me on errands and doesn't have to leave the house at all. No one knew of our discovery."

"Very little is known about the Dark Prince, and most of it is speculation, exaggerated tales about his mastery of the Dark Arts," Henry said. "But perhaps someone might have discovered a heretofore unknown piece of information in some obscure text. Or maybe a member of the archaeological team somehow came across the knowledge at the dig site, although I know most of them, and I can't picture any of them as thieves. For one thing, they could easily have stolen the item at the site before it ever reached the museum, but most importantly, they would rather have the glory of discovering an important new artifact than whatever money they could make selling it on the black market. And an item like this would truly be an historic find."

"I don't think the thief wants to sell it," Kingsley said, his expression growing grimmer by the minute. "I'm terribly afraid that he means to use it himself."

"Then that lets out the archaeological team as suspects," Henry said. "They've worked together in close quarters for weeks on end, and it would have been impossible for a werewolf to hide their lycanthropy from the rest of the team."

"They could have sold the information to someone else, but I agree that it's unlikely," Kingsley said, then glowered balefully at the Director. "I'm thinking that it was probably an inside job."

"Surely you're not suggesting that one of my staff could be responsible?!" the Director shouted indignantly.

"You have the daughter of a convicted Death Eater working for you, and she was right here in this office the day that we delivered the artifacts to Professor Bletchley!" Kingsley snapped.

"Miss Macnair is only a clerk," the Director protested. "She was never given any keys to the museum, or the command words to disable the wards!"

"She's clever and no doubt has an extensive knowledge of the Dark Arts," Kingsley said, then turned to Snape. "Can you honestly tell me that a Death Eater would not have been able to break into the museum?"

"No," Snape replied reluctantly. "It would have been child's play for the more powerful Death Eaters, but Miss Macnair was never truly a Death Eater..."

"But surely Macnair taught his children everything that he knows!" Kingsley insisted.

"Maybe not quite everything," Snape said dryly. "The Death Eaters tend to keep a few tricks in reserve, even from their own kin. Or it might even be fatherly concern, not wanting to teach them things they aren't ready to handle. But even if Imogen and Warren could have broken into the museum, would they really have done such a thing? They've been keeping a low profile ever since the Dark Lord's fall, and they have a great deal to lose--if they were convicted of a crime, the Ministry might well confiscate the family estate. They wouldn't take such a great risk unless the benefits were commensurately great."

"And they have an alibi!" Henry snapped. "As an Auror, it's natural for you to be suspicious of anyone connected with the Death Eaters, but you seem to have a fixation with the Macnair family, Mr. Shacklebolt!"

"Is that true?" Snape asked sharply. "Do they have an alibi?"

"Imogen and Warren Macnair were both spotted at a Weird Sisters concert last night at the approximate time of the break-in," Kingsley said disgustedly. 

"It seems they caused a bit of a ruckus," Tonks added. "Some hothead tried to pick a fight with Warren, calling him 'Death Eater scum'. Concert security broke it up before they started hexing each other, though."

"If they have an alibi, then why are you still suspecting them?" Snape demanded.

"You and I both know that the Slytherin elite like to have others take care of their dirty work for them," Kingsley retorted. "They could have hired someone to steal the medallion."

"I don't much care for Warren and Imogen, but what would they want with a werewolf artifact?" Theodore asked skeptically.

"Walden Macnair went to school with Rosalind Madley," Harry said thoughtfully. "But then, so did several other Death Eaters."

"None of whom work at the museum," Kingsley said.

"Don't be so sure about that," Snape said with a malicious smile. "All the pureblood families are inbred, after all. I'm sure there are more than a few people here with indirect ties to the Death Eater families."

"Well, the Macnairs are still my prime suspects," Kingsley said irritably. When Henry looked like he was about to protest again, Kingsley added, "But I'll keep my options open and investigate all possibilities. I don't intend to make the same mistakes that Dawlish did."

"Even assuming for the sake of argument that the Macnairs would want to hire a werewolf assassin, where would they find one?" Theodore asked, still looking doubtful.

"That's what's been puzzling us, too," Tonks admitted. "All the members of Lukas's pack seem to be accounted for, and we haven't been able to track down any rogue werewolves."

"So...what about Miss Macnair?" the Director interrupted in a nervous voice. "Do you really think she's the culprit? Should I fire her?"

"That wouldn't be fair," Lupin instantly replied, frowning uneasily. "We have no proof, and if she's innocent, that would be a great injustice. It could drive her to follow the path of the Death Eaters, even if she hadn't intended to before."

After a moment of thought, Kingsley told the Director, a bit grudgingly, "No, we have only a few suspicions, based on her father's reputation. That isn't enough to justify firing someone."

The Director nodded, still looking a little uncertain. "Very well," he said. "I'll hold off for now, but please get to the bottom of this as soon as possible!" 

"We will," Tonks said reassuringly. "It would help if you could give us a list of all the museum employees, including people who have official access to the keys and warding spells."

"Of course," the Director replied. "I'll have my secretary get that list to you." Then he left the room, muttering to himself fretfully about bad publicity.

"I understand that we shouldn't punish someone without proof," Harry said slowly, glancing back and forth from Kingsley to Lupin, obviously torn between suspicion of the Macnairs' connection to the Death Eaters and the desire to be fair. "But...if she is involved with the theft and the murders, is it safe to let her remain here?"

"I'm not really happy about the idea," Kingsley grumbled. "But since we have no grounds for arrest, I'd prefer that she remain here where we can at least keep an eye on her."

"The only basis for your suspicion is the fact that Imogen is related to a Death Eater," Henry said angrily. 

"That and the fact that she works at the place the artifact was stolen from," Kingsley retorted. "A very convenient coincidence."

"As Professor Snape pointed out, most of the purebloods are related directly or indirectly to the Death Eaters," Henry countered. "Are they all suspects, too?"

"You're awfully protective of Miss Macnair, Bletchley," Kingsley said, scowling at the scholar suspiciously. "What exactly is your relationship with her? I thought you were supposed to be courting Erika Dietrich!"

"Erika Dietrich--Aric's sister?" Harry blurted out, staring at Henry in surprise. "But you're so--" He hastily clamped his mouth shut, cutting off the rest of his sentence, but the unspoken words "much older than her" seemed to hang in the air.

"Well, Potter, you are as tactful as always," Snape said in a familiar tone of sarcastic humor.

Harry blushed, flashing a quick glare at his former teacher, then turned back to Henry and stammered, "I-I'm sorry, sir, I didn't mean--"

"It's all right, Mr. Potter," Henry said, casually waving off his apology. "I agree that I'm too old for Miss Dietrich--and Miss Macnair, for that matter. I am not courting either lady." He smiled bitterly and added, "Rather, you might say that my family is courting an alliance with the Dietrich family. But I am sure that Miss Dietrich can find a better groom than an older bachelor scholar set in his ways. And I have no romantic interest in Miss Macnair, although she is certainly a beautiful young woman, and I doubt that she has any such interest in me."

"Then why are you defending her so vehemently?" Kingsley asked, the hostility in his voice easing and giving way to curiosity.

Henry sighed wearily. "I feel some sympathy for Imogen, because I was a student at Hogwarts for most of the first war, and I remember what it was like to be treated with suspicion just because I was a Slytherin. And I know what you're about to say, Mr. Shacklebolt--that Imogen is more than just a Slytherin, but she didn't choose to be born the child of a Death Eater."

"That's true," Kingsley conceded. "But I have to take into account the fact that Walden Macnair almost certainly impressed his Death Eater values onto his offspring."

Henry sighed again but said nothing, unable to dispute Kingsley's words.

"We've done all we can here," Kingsley said. "Thank you for your cooperation, Professor Bletchley." His tone of voice was carefully polite, with no detectable hint of sarcasm, but Henry smiled mirthlessly and bowed ironically in reply. Kingsley then turned to Snape, Lupin, and Theodore, and asked, "Could the three of you accompany us to the Ministry? I have a few more questions for Theodore about the medallion."

When they arrived at the Ministry, Kingsley said, "Actually, I just wanted to continue this conversation out of Bletchley's hearing, although I do want to find out as much as possible about the medallion. What do you think, Snape? Could he be involved with the theft?"

"No," Snape replied, shaking his head. "All Bletchley cares about is his work. He doesn't care about money or politics, and he certainly wasn't a Death Eater."

Lupin smiled. "He sounds like an odd sort of Slytherin."

"He was more the Ravenclaw type, actually," Snape agreed. "He didn't have much ambition for a Slytherin, or rather, the focus of his ambition was extremely narrow: he was determined to become the best scholar in his field, and from what I know of his reputation, he's well on his way to achieving his goal. Bletchley might be tempted to kill for the opportunity to work with such a unique and powerful artifact, but since it was already in his possession, he had no reason to steal it."

"Do you know him well, Severus?" Tonks asked curiously.

Snape scowled, as he always did, at what he considered her impertinent familiarity, but he answered her question. "Well enough. We weren't close, but he was a couple of years behind me in Slytherin, and I spent enough time around him to know that he isn't the murderous sort."

"I didn't really think he was involved with either the theft or the murders," Kingsley admitted. "But I wanted to be sure. And I'm afraid he might unwittingly pass on information to Imogen Macnair. Alibi or not, she's still a suspect in my mind."

Harry frowned, his brow creasing in thought. "If he's around the Professor's age, Bletchley is too young to be Ash's father, if we're still going with the theory that the person behind the murders is Ash's real father. So is Warren Macnair, and Imogen obviously can't be a father..."

"Your powers of observation astound me, Potter," Snape said sarcastically. "Clearly, your Auror training must be paying off."

Kingsley glared at him, and Tonks giggled, while Lupin gently chided, "Be nice, Severus."

Harry flushed slightly, and persisted, "But Walden Macnair is old enough to be Ash's father, although we haven't been able to find a connection between him and Rosalind Madley, other than that they were both Slytherins attending Hogwarts at more or less the same time."

The mocking look on Snape's face faded away and he said in a much more serious voice, "Getting rid of a werewolf half-brother would be reason enough for murder. But if the twins are behind this, they're most likely acting on their father's orders."

"They faithfully visit their father in Azkaban about once a week," Kingsley said. "All visits with prisoners are supposed to be supervised, but..."

"But guards can be bribed to look the other way," Snape finished. "Or they could be using some sort of code to communicate--in fact, I'd consider that likely, even if they did bribe the guards. They wouldn't take the risk of openly discussing murder where someone might overhear them. The Death Eaters used to have a number of code words and signals that they could use to communicate with each other in public without arousing suspicion."

"I'll check on the security at Azkaban and make sure Macnair's visits are closely monitored," Kingsley said, sounding pleased to finally have something constructive to do. "And I'd appreciate it if you'd share those code words with us."

"Are you sure you trust the word of a Slytherin?" Snape asked pointedly.

"I trust the ones that fought on our side," Kingsley retorted. "That includes you, but not Imogen Macnair."

"I'm ever so flattered," Snape replied sarcastically.

"Please, Severus?" Tonks asked cajolingly, flashing a cheerful smile at him as her hair began changing from violet to a rainbow array of colors: bubblegum pink, lemon yellow, candy apple red, and neon green.

"Enough!" Snape said irritably as Lupin and Theodore smiled. "I'll give you the code if that means I can leave the presence of you Gryffindors. It's bad enough as it is, putting up with the werewolf and the students!"

"Thank you, Severus," Tonks said sweetly as Harry choked back a laugh. Snape just gave them a sour look and wrote out the code while the Aurors questioned Theodore about the medallion, although there was little more that he could tell them.

"All we know is it what it does," Theodore said. "I'm not even sure how to activate it. If only Henry had been able to test it further..." He sighed in frustration.

"Will the medallion allow the werewolf to remain sane during his transformations, the way that the Wolfsbane Potion does?" Harry asked.

"According to the runes, yes," Theodore replied. "Besides, it wouldn't have made sense for the Dark Prince to keep werewolf guards that he couldn't control."

"Of course, 'sane' is a relative term," Kingsley said wryly. "The killer has committed three brutal murders so far, at least one in human form if we include Mrs. Abbott, since she wasn't killed during the full moon."

"One doesn't have to be a werewolf to enjoy killing," Snape said curtly, handing over the completed list to the Aurors. "The Death Eaters are proof of that."

"Do you think that the Macnairs could be involved with the theft and murders, Severus?" Lupin asked when he, Snape, and Theodore had returned to Hogwarts.

"Is it possible?" Snape replied. "Certainly. But as to whether they actually are...I don't know. I admit that it rankles that a Slytherin family are suspects, even if I have no love for the Macnairs."

"It casts a shadow over Slytherin House once more, even after the war has ended and we are trying to put the past behind us," Lupin said softly.

"Yes, and it makes things harder for Theodore, Draco, Serafina, and anyone else related to a Death Eater," Snape agreed. "They'll all suffer guilt by association if the Macnairs are arrested." He paused, then added grudgingly, "Still, Shacklebolt is right to investigate them; he would be a fool if he didn't, especially since Imogen works at the museum."

"Knowledge of the artifacts wasn't exactly a secret, though," Theodore said. "The discovery of the Prince's tower was big news, at least in the academic world. A list of the artifacts found in the ruins was printed in a few scholarly journals, and gossip would have spread by word-of-mouth, too. Someone could have recognized the description of the medallion if they had already heard of it. The thief must already have known what it does, or they wouldn't have bothered stealing it."

Snape sighed, rubbing his brow as if he had a headache. "If the Aurors don't find the medallion quickly, there will be a bloodbath, you know. Imagine how much damage even one werewolf could do if he could transform at will--even more if he brings other werewolves under his control, perhaps by deliberately turning people and forcing them to join his pack, the way Greyback did. Moreover, it will cause mass hysteria even worse than the panic created by Williamson's little fraud. The public will very quickly fall back into their old habits of hating and fearing werewolves."

"Lukas's pack will not be safe," Lupin said, turning a little pale as the full implication of Snape's words set in.

"Nor you, either, Remus," Snape reminded him gravely. "At least, not outside the bounds of Hogwarts. I don't want you leaving the castle without me."

"Yes, dear, if it will set your mind at ease," Lupin said with a smile.

"It's no joke, Lupin!" Snape snapped. 

"I'm sorry, Severus," Lupin said gently. "I only meant to lighten the mood a little, but I understand full well the seriousness of the situation. We should warn Lukas and his pack to be careful."

"Yes," Snape agreed. "If they're attacked by vigilantes and fight back, that will add further fuel to the fire. And Arthur Weasley will either have to turn against the werewolves, or more likely, since he's a typical idealistic fool, lose his position for supporting them. Either way, the werewolves will be out in the cold."

"The Ministry could bring back the Registry," Lupin whispered, recalling the old days of hiding and lying, of poverty and lost jobs. "They could bring back the anti-werewolf legislation that kept me out of work."

"Could Remus lose his job at Hogwarts?!" Theodore asked, his voice rising in alarm.

"He could lose more than that," Snape said grimly. "In a worst-case scenario, he could lose his freedom, even his life. In the distant past, werewolves were automatically imprisoned, even executed for no crime other than simply existing."

"We can't let that happen, Father!" Theodore cried.

"Of course not," Snape replied coolly. "We would flee the country before that happens. Professor Kamiyama would be willing to give us temporary shelter, and I'm sure that we could both find work in Japan. But I would rather not uproot my life and start over from scratch except as a last resort. And the Snape estate would probably be forfeit should I be branded as a fugitive from the law."

"You know I don't care about that, Father," Theodore said.

"No, but Lady Selima might," Snape replied dryly.

"It won't get that far, surely," Lupin said nervously. "Surely Kingsley and Tonks and Harry will find the killer."

"Eventually, I'm sure they will," Snape said. "But by that time, the damage may already be done. It won't be so easy to rescind the anti-werewolf laws a second time."

"Then we have to stop things before they get that far," Lupin declared.

"Easier said than done," Snape replied in a sour voice. "We don't have time to run around playing detective, Lupin. We have classes to teach and that blasted trial to deal with. But I'll make some inquiries among my contacts, both in Britain and abroad, to see if anyone has been looking for a werewolf, or dark magic pertaining to lycanthropy. If we can track down the werewolf responsible for the murders, we might be able to find the person controlling him or her."

"I thought that Kingsley and Tonks were already following your suggestion of looking into sanatoriums that might have been keeping a werewolf prisoner," Lupin said.

"Yes, but some of those places might be more inclined to talk to a Dark Wizard than an Auror," Snape pointed out with a cynical smile. "Of course, I am regarded as a traitor in certain Dark circles myself, for betraying the Death Eaters, but still...greasing a few palms with liberal amounts of gold should serve to overcome whatever meager moral scruples they might possess."

"And I'll speak to Lukas again," Lupin said. "His people are supposed to be watching for signs of any rogue werewolves intruding on their territory."

"What should I do, Father?" Theodore asked anxiously.

"Go back to Tremayne," Snape told him. When Theodore started to protest, he added, "You will be far more help there than here, I assure you. Continue your translation work; perhaps you may come across a reference to the medallion that might prove helpful--it would certainly help if we could find a way to disable it! Tremayne also has a very extensive library, so make use of it, and see if you can find any information about the Dark Prince and his artifacts. You should also check with the members of the dig and see if they remember anyone showing an excessive interest in the artifacts, particularly the medallion."

"Yes, Father," Theodore said in a determined voice, and took the Floo back to Tremayne's house.

"Actually, it's mostly make-work," Snape admitted to Lupin once they were alone. "Tremayne's home is well-warded, and I would prefer that Theodore remain safely out of the way until the murders are solved, not to mention keep him away from Sebastien Delauney's lawyers. And there is the off-chance that he might find something useful about the medallion."

"Everything will be all right," Lupin said reaching out to clasp Snape's hands in his own. His voice tried hard to sound reassuring, but the fear lurking in his eyes belied his words.

"I prefer to expect the worst, Lupin," Snape said sourly, although he gave Lupin's hands a gentle squeeze. "That way I'm prepared when things go wrong--as they usually do, in my experience."

*** 

Greyback had been waiting impatiently at the safe house all day, staring at his prize with hungry eyes, his fingers lovingly tracing the runes on the stone medallion. He would have tried it out right away, but Imogen had extracted a promise from him not to use it until they were all together. Having to follow the Macnairs' orders still chafed at him, but he had developed a certain respect and admiration for Imogen. In a wolf pack, she would definitely be the alpha female.

In fact, it was obvious to Greyback that Imogen was the alpha member of the twins, although Warren probably wasn't consciously aware of it. She kept up a respectful demeanor towards her brother, as a proper young pureblood lady should, but Greyback noticed that when the two disagreed about something, Imogen inevitably got her way. Warren wasn't stupid, Greyback grudgingly admitted to himself, but he was a bit hot-tempered and impulsive, while Imogen always remained cool and collected, and thought things through logically. Greyback had tested her at first, trying to make her lose her temper, but she had not risen to the bait as Warren had, so now he treated her with the respect that he would have shown another alpha wolf, although he still regarded her brother with contempt.

He was also impressed that she had never shown any sign of fear of him, while he could practically smell the fear on Warren, although the young pureblood man tried to hide it with a show of bravado. It wasn't a reckless sort of fear, though; Imogen was clearly aware that he was dangerous, and was careful not to let her guard down around him. At the same time, she firmly demonstrated the authority she held over him via the Unbreakable Vow without being too heavy-handed about it. By no means did he delude himself into thinking that she regarded him as an equal, but he knew that she held a wary respect for him, the same as he did for her.

And Merlin, she was beautiful! At times he fantasized about thawing her ice queen demeanor, about taking her to bed and unleashing the passion that he was sure was lurking beneath her cool exterior. She had everything that he could possibly want in a mate: beauty, intelligence, strength, and ruthlessness. The only thing that she was lacking was the ability to hunt alongside him in wolf form, and that could easily be solved with one bite...if not for the Unbreakable Vow.

But he was bound by the Vow, and while Greyback was bloodthirsty, he wasn't a fool. He enjoyed fantasizing about her, and enjoyed the flirtatious banter that they indulged in, but he never forgot that she was the daughter of a Death Eater and that she would never willingly let a non-human lay a hand on her precious pureblood body.

He was essentially a slave to the Macnairs, but at the same time, they were bound not to harm him, either. It was better than being locked up in that wretched sanatorium, and as long as they gave him the freedom to hunt, he was content...for now, anyway. He would watch and wait, and in time, maybe he would find a loophole, a way to free himself from the Vow. Imogen had ordered him not to touch her without her permission, but what if he could somehow arrange it so that she was forced to give him that permission? 

He had spent some time getting up-to-date on the news of the wizarding world, and had heard about how that so-called pack leader Cyril Diggory, a.k.a. Lukas Bleddri, had saved the life of the young Dietrich heir by biting him and infecting him with lycanthropy. Although of course the Dietrich family had immediately disowned the boy. 

Greyback couldn't harm Imogen, even by indirect means, but they were plotting against the Ministry, which meant that they might very well have to engage in combat with the Aurors at some point, through no fault of Greyback's. And if Imogen should happen to be mortally wounded in combat, how far would she go to save her life? Would she choose death before dishonor, or would she choose to live by any means necessary, even a werewolf's bite? Warren might be idiotic and noble enough to choose the first, but Greyback suspected that Imogen was more practical. She would choose to live, and deal with the consequences later.

It was a very slender hope, little more than a pipe dream, really, but still, Greyback filed the thought away in the back of his mind, then turned his attention back to the immediate situation at hand when the twins Apparated into the safe house.

"I certainly hope this was worth it!" Warren said disgruntledly. "The Aurors questioned us for ages, even after we told them we had an alibi. Let me see this precious artifact." It was a direct order, so Greyback had no choice to obey, and reluctantly handed it over. "Huh," Warren snorted skeptically. "Doesn't look like much."

"It doesn't have to, so long as it does what it's supposed to," Imogen said, with her typical coolness. "Are you sure about this, Greyback? A damaged item can be dangerous to use."

"You said that scholar thought it was functional," Greyback pointed out.

"But he couldn't be positive, and he didn't have a chance to properly test it," Imogen replied. 

"I'm willing to take the chance," Greyback insisted stubbornly. "You wanted me to cause terror in the wizarding world--well, think how much terror I could cause if I could turn people at any time of the month! Besides, what's the point of stealing it if I'm not going to use it?"

"Do you even know how to use it?" Imogen asked. "Some devices require a command word, but the runes aren't decipherable without a translation, and I doubt that the Ministry will share it with us, and I'm sure they've instructed Bletchley not to, either."

"Well, the medallion is supposed to allow a werewolf to transform from wolf to human, and vice versa, and a wolf wouldn't be able to speak a command word," Greyback reasoned; he had been thinking about this very question all day while waiting for the twins. "So I'm guessing that all it requires is a mental command. If I'm wrong, then I'll just have to experiment with it."

"Fine, but we'll take some precautions," Imogen said.

They moved down into the basement, where Imogen and Warren drew a large protective circle around Greyback that would theoretically prevent him from escaping in case the magic of the medallion went awry and caused him to go berserk. It was the same type of circle traditionally used in demon-summoning, and Greyback grinned. He didn't mind being thought of as a demon--in fact, he rather liked it.

"Are you sure this will hold him?" Warren asked nervously. "Maybe it would be better to just lock him in the room until we know it's safe."

"If a circle of this power won't hold him, then I doubt that a wooden door will, either," Imogen replied dryly. "Even if he manages to break through the circle, it should still slow him down long enough for us to get to safety. And besides, I want to observe the transformation process. Assuming the medallion works, that is."

Warren shook his head, looking unconvinced, but as usual, deferred to his sister's judgment. Greyback had strung the medallion with a new cord, and he hung it around his neck as the twins stepped back, watching from the doorway at a prudent distance. When the medallion came to rest against his chest, he felt a tingle of magical power, like a small burst of static electricity. Encouraged, he laid one hand on the medallion and closed his eyes, concentrating on the memories of past transformations, willing himself to change from human to wolf.

He felt the familiar pain of his flesh and bones reshaping themselves, but he welcomed it, because that meant the medallion must be working. Then he heard both twins cry out in shock and fear, and his eyes popped open. The transformation was often frightening to normal humans, but the twins had been prepared for this, and an alpha female like Imogen wouldn't normally show weakness by voicing her fear, so something must be wrong...

And then Greyback realized that he was still standing on two legs rather than all fours. He glanced down at himself and saw that his arms were still human, but they were covered with gray fur, and his fingernails had thickened and lengthened into sharp black talons. He reached up to touch his face and felt fur there, too, and a long, pointed wolf-like snout.

He turned to look at the Macnairs, and saw that they were both pale and trembling, raising their wands up defensively with shaking hands. "Merlin's beard!" Warren whispered. "The magic of the artifact must have been altered because of the damage--he's turned into a half-man, half-wolf monstrosity!"

"Gr-Greyback," Imogen called out, in a voice that quavered only slightly, "are you sane?"

Greyback grinned, exposing a set of sharp fangs that only seemed to alarm the twins even more. "I feel better than I ever have in my life, Lady Imogen." His words came out as a low growl, huskier and raspier than his normal voice. Greyback flexed his arms, watching the muscles ripple beneath layers of fur and skin; he could feel the power and strength of his wolf form combined with the flexibility of his human body. 

He loved hunting in his wolf form, but there were times when it was inconvenient not to have the use of his hands and arms. A closed door would no longer be an obstacle on the full moon, not to mention that he could now literally tear a victim to pieces with his bare hands if he wished. Maybe he could even cast spells in this half-wolf form, although he would have to experiment to confirm that. He actually took more satisfaction in killing his prey with teeth and claws rather than magic, but it would certainly be useful to be able to Disapparate if he needed to escape quickly after an attack.

Greyback threw back his head and howled in delight, and Warren nearly jumped out of his robes--a sight that would have been more amusing if the hand holding his wand hadn't involuntarily jerked upward as well. Greyback tensed, preparing to dodge whatever spell Warren might hurl at him, but Imogen hastily grabbed her brother's arm and pulled it back down.

"Don't forget, the Vow is still in effect!" she snapped at Warren, then turned to Greyback. "And you, don't you know better than to startle a nervous Dark Wizard?"

Her face was still a little pale, but her voice was defiant, and she met his gaze unflinchingly, and Greyback's admiration for her increased. Ah, what a fine mate she would make for him, if only he weren't bound by the damned Unbreakable Vow! Still, the thought of being able to transform at will filled him with a fierce sense of joy, and he grinned at her again.

"Forgive me, my Lady," he growled, bowing in a parody of a courtly bow. "I was overcome with joy and forgot myself for a moment."

"Well, it seems like he's in control of his senses, at least," Warren said shakily, looking cautiously relieved although still a bit wary. "But...is the medallion supposed to do that? What if he's trapped permanently in that form?"

"I wouldn't really mind," Greyback said, flexing his claws and admiring the sight of his talons. "This body has the best of both worlds. I'm sure that I can still turn people with a bite." He wouldn't be able to prove it until he actually bit someone, but somehow he instinctively knew it was true.

"But you would be a bit conspicuous in that form, Greyback," Imogen said dryly. "And for now, we still need you to keep a low profile. Will you please try to transform fully into a wolf, and then back into a human?"

"Since you ask so politely, my Lady," Greyback said, bowing again. He closed his eyes and concentrated, and found himself falling to his hands and knees as his body transformed yet again, into the familiar form of his wolf-self. It felt comfortable, like slipping into an old and well-worn robe. He barked and wagged his tail.

Warren laughed nervously. "It almost looks like he's saying, 'Come closer, Little Red Riding Hood.'"

Imogen smiled, looking relaxed and confident now that the medallion had proven to be effective. "And indeed, I can see what big teeth you have, Greyback, but forgive me if I don't get any closer. I wouldn't want to tempt you to break the Vow, after all."

Greyback barked out a laugh, and dipped his head in acknowledgment, then willed himself to transform. A few moments later, he stood before the twins in his human form. "There!" he said triumphantly. "The medallion works, like I told you it would! Now would you mind letting me out of here?" 

Imogen flicked her wand, releasing the wards on the protective circle, and Greyback stepped over it and joined the twins. "You were right," she told Greyback, to his immense satisfaction. "It was worth the risk. With this device, we will be able to spread terror throughout the wizarding world! A single werewolf can do as much damage as an entire pack!"

"It's a pity we don't have more of these," Greyback said, touching the medallion. "I don't suppose you could find a way to duplicate the magic?"

Imogen shook her head regretfully. "It would take a far more skilled mage than myself. I'm not sure that any living witch or wizard could duplicate the Dark Prince's magic. But perhaps after Father and the other Death Eaters are freed from Azkaban, we could try. The Dark Lord taught his disciples far more about Dark Magic than is ever taught at Hogwarts, or even Durmstrang. But for now, it will be enough for you to simply spread fear and chaos."

"So I can go hunting tonight?" Greyback asked eagerly.

Imogen smiled and nodded. "Yes, go and try out your new toy."

"Any particular target you have in mind, my Lady?"

Imogen paused for a moment to consider his question, then shook her head. "Not really. Any random citizen will do for now. But be careful. Don't attack in a crowded area; we don't want any witnesses at this point. And don't take on a dangerous target, like an Auror or another werewolf."

Greyback scowled, feeling rather insulted. "An Auror is nothing! I killed two of them with my bare hands at Madley's place, remember? And I thought you wanted me to defeat Cyril Diggory and take over his pack."

"All in good time, Greyback," Imogen said coolly. "It's not that I doubt your strength, but you shouldn't be careless of the Aurors. They'll be on their guard now that two of their own have been killed; you won't find it so easy to ambush them a second time. As for Diggory, he spends most of his time at Hogwarts and Diggory Manor, and you don't have easy access to either of those places. 

"When the time is right, we'll find a way to lure him out, but for now, I simply want to create a growing sense of dread in the wizarding world. It will start with a single victim here, another victim there, with the number of victims gradually increasing until full-blown panic breaks out and Arthur Weasley is forced to resign. Have patience, Greyback. Remember, our goal is not just to kill, but to gain control of the wizarding world. Would you rather sneak around in the shadows as a fugitive, or walk freely with the authority of a Hit Wizard?"

Greyback remembered the Macnairs' promise, to place him in charge of a squad of Hit Wizards--or Hit Werewolves--should they succeed in their goal of usurping control of the Ministry. It was only a fantasy at the moment, but one that definitely appealed to him. He decided that it wouldn't hurt to humor Imogen; she was a clever girl, and if anyone could pull off such a feat, it was her. If he had strength, then she had cunning and foresight. Greyback reluctantly admitted to himself that if Imogen had been part of his pack during the first war, he probably would not have made the mistakes that had caused him to fall out of the Dark Lord's favor. They complemented each other perfectly, Greyback decided--wolf queen to his king, as he had once jokingly remarked.

"Very well," he said, bowing his head, and the twins looked pleasantly surprised that he had given in so easily. "I will defer to your judgment, Lady Imogen."


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another murder is blamed on the werewolves, and Selima Snape schemes to keep the Minister of Magic--and incidentally, the Snape family--in power.

The following morning, the body of a man named Octavius Pepper was found in Diagon Alley. He was a street vendor who sold Pepperup Potions, as well as Beautification and Love Potions of dubious quality. Unlike the previous victims, he had no known connections to the werewolves, yet he appeared to have been killed in the same manner as the Madleys and Mrs. Abbott--at first glance, anyway.

As usual, Takeshi Kimura and Healer Smethwyck were called in, but they seemed puzzled and disturbed when they examined the body. "He appears to have been killed by a werewolf, but..." Smethwyck said, his voice trailing off uncertainly.

"But it's strange, isn't it?" Harry finished, relieved to have his own suspicions confirmed. "Those wounds look like teeth and claw marks but the moon wasn't full last night."

"The medallion," Kingsley said grimly. "It really does work. We should have confiscated the blasted thing instead of giving it to the museum."

The healers looked puzzled, as they had not been told of the theft of the medallion, and the Ministry was trying to keep the news under wraps. Dawlish glared at Kingsley for letting the information slip, and Tonks sighed, "We were going to have to tell them anyway, Richard, if werewolf victims keep turning up between full moons."

"Oh, very well," Dawlish said grudgingly, and Tonks explained about the missing artifact.

"Is there any chance that he could have been killed by a transfigured dog or something like that?" Harry asked, not very hopefully.

Takeshi shook his head. "No, a few of these wounds show signs of self-healing, as in a true werewolf attack. See?" He pointed to a half-healed wound on Pepper's leg. "But some of the other wounds appear to be made by neither a man nor a wolf. Or perhaps I should say--by both a man and a wolf?" He indicated four long, thin bruises encircling the victim's arm, as if someone had gripped it hard enough to impress the mark of their hand on it--hard enough to have broken it, in fact. The arm was bent at an unnatural angle where the handprint was, and there were deep puncture wounds at the ends of the bruises, as if fingernails--or talons--had pierced the flesh when the killer had grabbed the victim's arm.

"But these bite marks were definitely inflicted by a large canine--much larger than a normal dog or wolf," Smethwyck added. "They are consistent with injuries inflicted by a werewolf."

"So maybe the killer attacked Pepper in human form, then transformed into a wolf?" Tonks guessed.

"But these wounds were made by talons, not fingernails," Takeshi objected.

"So you're saying that he was killed by a...a wolfman, like in a Muggle horror movie?" Harry asked incredulously.

"I don't know," Takeshi replied, shrugging helplessly. "Despite what rumor and movies and popular fiction say, a werewolf always transforms into an animal nearly indistinguishable from a real wolf, never some sort of humanoid monster. But it sounds like no one really knows how this mysterious stolen artifact works..."

"The magic may have been warped by the damage done to the medallion," Kingsley speculated. "Maybe the transformation was halted halfway through."

"It doesn't matter whether this werewolf is walking around on two legs or four!" Dawlish shouted. "What matters is that we've got a monster running around killing people, and now he's not restricted to the full moon!"

"And two legs or four, he can apparently turn people, too," Smethwyck said gravely. "If Mr. Pepper had survived, he would almost certainly have turned into a werewolf himself."

"This is what comes of coddling your werewolf friends!" Dawlish yelled accusingly at Kingsley, Tonks, and Harry. 

"Richard, be reasonable," Tonks pleaded.

"If we keep on being 'reasonable,' soon half of London will be dead or turned!" Dawlish retorted. "I intend to catch this killer if I have to round up every werewolf in Britain, starting with Diggory's pack!"

"You can't arrest them just for being werewolves!" Harry objected. "That's against the law!"

"And Arthur won't permit such a thing," Kingsley added, speaking in a quiet, level voice, as if trying to project an air of calm to ease the tension in the room. Unfortunately, he wasn't very successful.

"Then we can at least bring them in for questioning!" Dawlish snarled. "And if Arthur doesn't watch his step, we won't be answering to him much longer!"

"Was that a threat, Richard?" Tonks demanded, her face flushing with anger. Her violet hair slowly began to turn red, too, like heat rising from a fire. If Harry hadn't been so angry himself, he might have found it amusing.

Strangely, her words seemed to calm Dawlish down a bit. "No, merely a statement of fact, Tonks," he replied in a taut voice. Now that the anger had faded, Harry could see that there was also fear and worry in the Auror's face. "I'll admit, I'm not Weasley's biggest supporter, but he's a decent man. As Ministers go, we could do worse. The problem is, he's too soft, and he's surrounded by ambitious, power-hungry underlings, all ready to pounce at the first sign of weakness, like..." He smiled ironically. "Like a pack of wolves waiting to pounce on a wounded deer. He needs to learn how to play politics, and how to be ruthless when it's necessary."

"So he should sacrifice the werewolves to hold onto his job?" Harry asked disgustedly.

"Get off your high horse, Potter!" Dawlish snapped. "Yes, sometimes sacrifices have to be made. Besides, who do you think will protect your precious werewolves if Arthur gets sacked? Amos Diggory and Dolores Umbridge might be gone, but they still have plenty of friends left in the Ministry, and if one of them becomes Minister, you can kiss the equal rights bill and the Wolfsbane Potion Distribution Program goodbye." He gave Harry a cold stare. "Even if we catch the killer today, there will be fallout from these murders, Potter. There will be changes in the Ministry, like it or not. Arthur can choose to be a part of these changes, or he can be swept aside by them."

"But you know the murderer isn't Ash, because you questioned him under Truth Potion," Harry protested. "It's probably a rogue, someone not even connected to Master Diggory's pack."

"It doesn't matter," Dawlish sighed, suddenly looking weary. "We have to at least look like we're doing something to solve this case. Weasley's not the only one who can lose his job, you know."

Harry had a sudden vision of a Daily Prophet headline that read: "INCOMPETENT AURORS FAIL TO CATCH SERIAL KILLER!"--with Rita Skeeter's byline, of course. Not that Harry cared what Skeeter wrote, but if he and Tonks and Kingsley lost their jobs, then the Aurors who replaced them would probably go after the werewolf pack with even less restraint than Dawlish. 

"So start bringing in the werewolves for questioning," Dawlish ordered. "We'll consider it 'voluntary' at the moment--after all, if they're innocent, they won't mind answering a few questions, right? In the meantime, I'm going to get a warrant to search their main residence. I doubt that I can get a warrant for the Diggory mansion at this point, but I'm going to try. He's married to Narcissa Malfoy, and the Malfoys might well have an interest in Dark Magic artifacts. Hmm, I wonder if I could get a warrant for Malfoy Manor...?"

"But Draco and Narcissa aren't--"

"Find me another suspect, Potter, and I'll gladly interview them," Dawlish interrupted curtly. "Otherwise, I'm going with what I have." Harry opened his mouth again, and Dawlish snapped, "The issue isn't up for debate! I'm still the lead Auror on this case, and don't you forget it! Now get to work!"

He swept out of the room without waiting for an answer, and Harry muttered, "Yes, sir," sarcastically under his breath.

Tonks heaved a sigh of resignation. "Well, if someone has to question the werewolves, I think it had better be us than Dawlish, don't you think?"

"Yes," Kingsley agreed dryly. "Unless we really do want to see blood spilled."

*** 

After weeks of awkward courtship and misunderstandings, Ash had finally moved in with Tsubasa. Ironically, they hadn't yet slept together--or rather, they had quite literally slept in the same bed, but nothing more. After being rescued from his unexpected transformation following his father's death, Ash had been too drained, both physically and emotionally, to do anything more than lie in Tsubasa's arms. His inner wolf had found that satisfying enough, though, craving comfort and reassurance more than sex. It had been enough just to lie next to Tsubasa and breathe in his scent and listen to the sound of his breathing.

When Ash tried to report to work the next day, Arthur took one look at him and ordered him to take some time off--"compassionate leave," he called it. Typical Weasley softheartedness, or maybe he just wanted to keep Ash a safe distance away from an irate Dawlish, who was rather disgruntled about having his prime suspect proven innocent. Either way, Arthur refused to take "no" for an answer, and in the meantime, Sprout had also told Laura to take a day or two off from school, so Ash spent some time getting to know his half-sister. 

They tried to talk over tea in Sprout's quarters, but their conversation was stiff and halting, with neither of them really knowing what to say. Finally, Ash suggested that they go for a walk on the school grounds for lack of anything better to say. That turned out to be a good idea, as it gave them both a neutral topic of conversation, with Ash asking questions as Laura pointed out various buildings and landmarks. His interest wasn't feigned; like all the other young werewolves, he had dreamed of attending Hogwarts but never had the chance, and he really was quite curious about the school.

As they relaxed, the conversation flowed more naturally, and Laura told him about her classes and friends, while Ash told her a little about his life with the pack, and how he had come to join them. He glossed over the more unsavory details, of course, but even that relatively "clean" version caused her eyes to brim with tears, and a look of guilt and pity to fill her face.

"It's not your fault," Ash gently told her. "Besides, everything worked out in the end. Lukas found me, and I have a true family now, my pack brothers and sisters...and you too, of course, my new little sister."

Laura smiled at him shyly, then hesitantly reached out and slipped her hand in his, and they continued strolling hand-in-hand, not saying much but taking comfort in each other's presence. Sprout had summoned him the other night to console Laura, but to his surprise, Ash found that being with his sister helped to ease his own reluctant and unwilling feelings of grief. He wasn't really sure why; maybe it helped to know that something good had come out of his parents' marriage, or maybe it was simply that pain was lessened by being shared, like the old adage said.

Still, they carefully avoided certain topics, such as Laura's happy memories of her childhood. She instinctively seemed to sense that Ash didn't want it rubbed in his face that they had been loving parents to her but not to him. Likewise, Ash mentioned little about his life with Rosalind and Madley, and talked mostly about his life with the pack.

Ash also introduced Laura to Lukas and Celine--well, she already knew them, of course, but this was her official introduction as a new pack member. She was obviously a little intimidated by Lukas, which made Ash smile, remembering how he had been frightened of Lukas when they had first met in Knockturn Alley. But when he greeted her warmly and welcomed her as a new "sister," Laura smiled at him shyly; it would take a little while for her to get to know the softer side of Lukas that he normally showed only to the cubs in the pack.

She had no such reservations about Celine, though. The younger girl impulsively flung her arms around Laura and delightedly exclaimed, "Oh, I'm so glad to have a sister!" 

Laura was stunned for a brief moment, but quickly returned the embrace, saying, "I'm glad to have a sister, too. Growing up, I always wished that I had siblings, and now I have a brother _and_ a sister!"

"Lots of brothers and sisters," Celine giggled. "Just wait till you meet the rest of the pack!" Laura hugged her again, and she seemed to take great comfort in her newfound sister's affection. At least, her face gained a little color and lost some of that haunted, despairing look that she'd been wearing since her father's death.

Laura left Sprout's quarters and returned to the Hufflepuff dorm that night, and Ash was glad that Celine would be there to provide comfort, although she seemed to have many friends in Hufflepuff, judging by the reaction she got when she arrived for dinner in the Great Hall. Ash was watching from his seat at the head table as Tsubasa's guest, and he saw the Hufflepuffs cluster around her, greeting her with obvious concern and affection, hugging her or patting her on the shoulder, offering their sympathies and saying they were glad to have her back, that they'd been worried about her. 

One brown-haired girl was especially protective of Laura, and she kept turning to glance curiously at Ash; that must be Rosie Zeller. Laura had briefly mentioned that she was best friends with one of the farm children, who turned out to be the daughter of Ash's old friend John. 

Ash continued to watch over his sister from the head table, having no desire to go over and introduce himself to the Zeller girl, because he wasn't exactly sure how he felt about his former friends who had abandoned him. His anger and resentment had faded somewhat, but he still wasn't ready to forgive them yet. It wasn't the girl's fault, of course, but he decided to keep his distance for the moment. 

Dealing with a long-lost sister was going to be challenging enough without adding further complications, although he was going to have to deal with the issue eventually, since it seemed like he had become Laura's guardian by default. Even if the Parkers changed their minds about wanting custody of Laura, he couldn't leave the poor girl with his mother's cold-blooded relatives.

And suddenly a whole host of new complications presented themselves, as the full implications dawned on him. It was one thing to offer a sympathetic shoulder to cry on, but to take on custody and become a responsible guardian for a child? Laura would be at Hogwarts for most the year, but what about summer and winter holidays? Should he take her to live with him at the townhouse, or would she want to go back to the farm? The latter would be a problem, since he certainly didn't want to step foot in his childhood home again. Maybe she could stay with John's family, but that seemed like shirking his responsibility, somehow. And where did Tsubasa fit into all this?

His thoughts grew increasingly frantic, until a light touch on his arm brought him back to reality. "Everything will be all right, Ash," Tsubasa said with an understanding smile. "Just give it some time."

"Ah...right," Ash said, turning his attention back to his dinner. He didn't have to solve all of his problems tonight, after all. First, he'd give Laura some time to heal and get over the worst of her grief, and later he could talk to her about where she wanted to live. And he could ask Lukas for advice in the meantime. Maybe he could bring Laura over to the townhouse and Diggory Manor for short visits, to gradually get her acquainted with the pack.

And at some point, he supposed that he and Tsubasa were going to have to decide what they were going to do. Tsubasa had said that they had to learn to live together since they didn't seem to be able to live apart, but Ash didn't know if that meant moving in together right away, or simply continuing to date with the intention of making their relationship permanent. And if they did move in together, did that mean living together at Hogwarts, or getting a place of their own?

Tsubasa seemed disinclined to discuss it right now, though, and Ash was content to simply enjoy being in his presence. After dinner, they spent a quiet evening together not doing much of anything; Ash lounged on the couch watching as Tsubasa read and graded some Transfiguration homework. "I hope you're not bored," Tsubasa told him apologetically, and Ash just smiled and shook his head.

They did nothing more than sleep together (literally, not figuratively) that night, too. If Tsubasa wanted to take things slowly, Ash was willing to respect that, and his inner wolf remained tame, although it was beginning to take a definite interest in the closeness of Tsubasa's body lying beside his. But it was nothing remotely close to the raging lust that had possessed him the day that he'd taken Tsubasa up against the wall of the Physical Defense classroom, and he remained in control of the wolf...for now.

Laura decided to resume her classes the next day, saying that schoolwork would help keep her mind off things, so Ash went to visit his packmates, who alternately wept, hugged, scolded, and fussed over him, all in quick succession. Matilda gave him a sharp tongue-lashing for making them worry about him, and he meekly apologized. Takeshi laughed and embraced him, whispering, "I hope things work out for you and Tsubasa. I think you two are good for each other."

"I hope so, too," Ash replied, pleasantly surprised to find that any lingering attraction he had for his friend seemed to have dissipated. He still loved Takeshi, but his feelings had reverted back to a more brotherly sort of affection, although he still felt a kind of nostalgic pleasure when he thought of their one night together. But when he tried to picture the one that he really desired, it was Tsubasa's face that was foremost in his mind. He held onto Takeshi for just a little longer than was really appropriate, though, just to needle Aric a bit and make his pack brother scowl jealously.

Ash returned to Hogwarts later that afternoon, feeling much better. He spent a little time with Laura, telling her humorous stories about his packmates, and he was happy when she eagerly asked if she could meet them sometime. Maybe she wouldn't mind living with the pack, after all.

He spent time with Tsubasa as well, the two of them not yet discussing commitments, but simply trying to get to know each other a little better. Tsubasa talked about his schoolboy days at Salem and his life with the tengu, and Ash told Tsubasa some of the same stories he had told Laura--minus the editing meant to shield an innocent young girl's sensibilities.

After dinner, they sat together quietly in Tsubasa's quarters, sipping some green tea that Tsubasa had brewed, both of them feeling a little talked out from their previous conversation. "How about some music?" Tsubasa suggested, and Ash nodded, thinking that he meant to turn on the wireless, or maybe one of those magical music boxes. But instead, he took down a silk-wrapped object from a shelf, unfolding the cloth to reveal a wooden flute. It was crudely carved and obviously homemade, but when Tsubasa put it to his lips, the most lovely music poured out of it: high, clear notes that were sweet but haunting and a little mournful, like a songbird keening wordlessly for its lost mate. And yet, there was a hint of comfort in the music that made the sorrow bearable. 

"That was beautiful," Ash whispered, with tears in his eyes when the last note of the song died away.

Tsubasa lowered the flute and smiled, his fingers caressing it affectionately. "One of my tengu friends made this for me and taught me the song. It's an old song that's been passed down among the tengu for generations, but it was actually created by a human. According to the legends, a tengu man once dallied with a human woman and got her with child. She gave birth to her son in her home village, but as he grew older, he began to show signs of tengu magic, and the villagers grew fearful of him, calling him a demon. The mother knew that her son would never be accepted in the human world, so she took him to the tengu and turned him over to his father's people to be raised. The song I just played was the mother's lament, a bittersweet farewell to her child."

"I see," Ash said. Not a song of parted lovers, then, but a mother trying to comfort her child as she said goodbye to him forever. "She couldn't have stayed with her son and lived in the tengu village with him?"

Tsubasa shrugged. "The stories are a little vague. The tengu are an insular people, and she might not have been welcome. Even if they did allow her to stay, she probably would have felt as out of place there as her son did in the human village."

"Well, it was a beautiful song, although it's sad," Ash said. "I had no idea that you could play the flute." Tsubasa lips twitched as he fought back a smile, then gave up and burst into laughter. "Did I say something funny?" Ash asked, puzzled, not finding anything amusing in his simple statement.

"'Shakuhachi' is the Japanese word for 'flute,'" Tsubasa replied coyly, giving him a sidelong glance through half-lidded eyes. "But it's also a certain...hmm...euphemism for something else."

"So it really means...?" Ash prompted.

A sensual smile spread slowly across Tsubasa's face, and he practically purred, "Perhaps it would be better if I showed you rather than explained it. We wouldn't want anything to get lost in the translation, after all."

Ash thought he could probably guess what it meant, but he certainly didn't object as Tsubasa opened and pushed aside Ash's robes, then unbuttoned and unzipped his trousers, reaching inside to free his rapidly growing erection. "So eager," Tsubasa murmured, his fingers encircling Ash and running up and down the shaft. Ash moaned, leaning back against the couch, vaguely noting that Tsubasa's hand felt strangely rough in some spots but silky-smooth in others. It didn't feel bad, though--quite the opposite, in fact! The roughness of Tsubasa's calloused hand gliding along his very sensitive skin actually heightened the pleasure and sent shivers up and down Ash's spine.

He didn't have much time to ponder the matter, though, because Tsubasa slid off the couch, pushing Ash's legs apart so that he could kneel between them, and lowered his mouth, lips and tongue replacing fingers. Ash moaned again, forgetting about everything except the sensation of Tsubasa's mouth moving on him, licking and sucking gently, almost playfully at first, then with more force, gradually increasing in intensity until he was on the brink of climax, then easing off to let him catch his breath before increasing again, the pleasure ebbing and flowing like a tide. 

Ash growled as he reached down to loosen the cord that tied back Tsubasa's hair, so that he could tangle his fingers in that mass of black silk. He might have gripped a little too hard, because his lover let out a muffled little grunt of pain, but instead of stopping his "flute-playing," he suckled harder, without backing off this time, and very lightly pressed his teeth into Ash's flesh. That sent Ash right over the edge, and he howled as he came, spilling into Tsubasa's mouth.

He felt like he was drowning in sensation, ecstasy coursing through his body like fire running through his veins, and for a moment, he forgot who and where he was. As awareness slowly returned, he glanced down to see Tsubasa sitting back on his heels, a self-satisfied smirk on his face as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

"Well," Ash said a little breathlessly, "you certainly are a man of many talents: teacher, swordsman, master musician. Is there anything you can't do, Professor Tsubasa?"

"Ironically, I'm crap at weaving and sewing," Tsubasa admitted sheepishly.

"I thought that was the specialty of your people?" Ash teased. "All those fairy tales about turning feathers into cloth..." Tsubasa blushed, looking rather embarrassed, and Ash felt guilty. Tsubasa had said once that he didn't get along with most of the crane folk; maybe they gave him a hard time because he couldn't weave. "Well, but not all of your people are weavers, right?" Ash asked, giving him an apologetic smile. "Takeshi is a mediwizard."

"Takeshi is part-human," Tsubasa explained. "Not all crane folk with human blood can perform Weaving magic, but all the purebloods can--theoretically. Even if they choose some other profession, such as healing, they still have the ability to weave feathers into silk, and even a crane of average ability ought to be able to produce cloth finer than anything the Muggles can mass-produce with their machinery. But I seem to be the exception to the rule." He grimaced comically. "I can sort of do it, if you don't mind cloth with snarls and runs and knots in it, but I can't produce a garment that anyone other than a beggar would want to wear in public."

"Well, perhaps you have this one weakness to balance out all your other talents," Ash chuckled. "If you were any more perfect, you'd be nearly insufferable."

"I shall endeavor to remain humble," Tsubasa said sweetly, eyes downcast with feigned modesty. 

"Come here," Ash growled, grabbing Tsubasa by one arm and pulling him up off the floor onto his lap. He kissed the other man deeply, taking a slightly perverse sort of pleasure in tasting the bitterness of his own climax inside Tsubasa's mouth. Tsubasa was wearing a long kimono without his usual hakama trousers, and Ash slipped his hand beneath the folds of the kimono, running his fingers along Tsubasa's thigh until they reached his crotch and firmly closed over the obvious evidence of his arousal. Ash grinned as Tsubasa moaned loudly, and he growled into his lover's ear, "I'm no master musician, but I'd like to return the favor. I think I can manage to play a tune or two, if you like."

"Yes," Tsubasa whispered hoarsely as Ash nibbled gently on his earlobe. "I would like that..."

Afterwards, Ash lay sprawled across the couch with his head pillowed on Tsubasa's lap. His performance might have lacked some of Tsubasa's finesse, but he had tried to make up in enthusiasm what he lacked in subtlety, and Tsubasa certainly seemed satisfied enough. He rested against the couch with his eyes closed and his face flushed, a satiated smile on his lips as he idly stroked Ash's hair.

Ash growled with pleasure, but then remembered something that had puzzled him, and grabbed Tsubasa's hand to examine it more closely, noting that it was as calloused as his own, although in slightly different places. 

"Is something wrong?" Tsubasa asked.

"No," Ash replied, releasing his hand. "It's just funny that I never noticed the calluses on your hand before."

Tsubasa grinned wickedly and said, "That's because you were far more interested in other parts of my anatomy."

"That's true," Ash confessed, laughing. "But to be honest, it reassures me. Your skin is so soft that I always felt a little ashamed to be touching you with these rough hands." He held up his own hands, which were slightly calloused themselves from years of physical labor, since the werewolves had often had difficulty finding proper wizarding jobs.

"Silly wolf," Tsubasa scolded affectionately, kissing Ash's fingertips. "For one thing, I'm not that delicate. For another, any experienced swordsman is going to have calluses." He smiled nostalgically. "Although the tengu did tease me for having 'soft hands' when I first arrived at their village. I had taken some kendo lessons from my step-uncle, who is an instructor at a small dojo in the States, but nothing like the kind of intensive training that the tengu teach. 

"They laughed at me and told me to go back to my loom, but when I insisted on staying, they decided to test my resolve. Before I was even allowed to touch a sword, they assigned me to hard, menial labor, like chopping firewood and hauling buckets of water--up and down the mountain, I might add. I was soft, by tengu standards, and my hands were blistered and bleeding, and my muscles aching by the end of the first day, but I never uttered a single word of complaint, because I knew they'd send me back home if I did. The tengu were impressed by my stubbornness, and they eventually deigned to accept me as a student. And I eventually developed calluses and got accustomed to hard work." He kissed Ash's hands again. "So there is no reason for you to feel ashamed of yourself, ever. Evidence of hard work is something to be proud of."

"I never thought of it that way before," Ash said, staring up at Tsubasa in wonder. He had always felt slightly ashamed of himself--of his scars, his calluses, and until he'd gotten his Ministry job, his shabby clothes and lack of money. And to a certain extent, of his lycanthropy, although in some ways he considered it a blessing because it had brought him to Lukas and the pack, his true family. It amazed him that someone like Tsubasa, so beautiful and noble, thought of him as an equal. Ash had always defiantly declared that he was the equal of any human, but deep down inside, maybe he hadn't really believed it.

"Well, you should," Tsubasa said, smiling at him tenderly.

Ash sat up and wrapped one arm around Tsubasa, pulling him close. "So, you don't mind if I touch you?" he asked in a husky growl, sliding his other hand beneath Tsubasa's kimono.

"Not at all," Tsubasa gasped. "I see you've got your second wind."

"Haven't you heard?" Ash asked with a grin. "Werewolves are insatiable."

"Show me," Tsubasa said, kissing him.

So he did.

*** 

Ash spent most of the night demonstrating just how insatiable werewolves were, which meant that they were both exhausted when they finally fell into a deep and contented slumber, and they slept late into the next morning.

Ash woke up when he felt Tsubasa stirring next to him, and noticed sunlight filtering through the curtains covering the bedroom window. "Morning," Tsubasa said, brushing his lips against Ash's cheek, then he yawned and stretched, blinking sleepily as he rolled over to glance at the clock on the nightstand. "I don't think we can make it to breakfast in the Great Hall, but I have some tea and fruit and rice crackers on hand, if you don't mind making do. Or I could ask the house-elves to send some food up from the kitchen."

"No, that's fine," Ash said, waving off the latter suggestion. "But won't you be late for class?"

"I have first period free," Tsubasa replied, smiling lazily. "It's Professor McGonagall's turn to teach Transfiguration today, and Physical Defense doesn't start till later, so there's no rush."

"Good," Ash growled, nuzzling Tsubasa's neck, feeling a smug sense of satisfaction at the sight of the bruises he had left there last night. The wolf had enjoyed claiming its mate, but their lovemaking had been playful and relaxed, a pleasant contrast to the desperation and anger that had marked their last encounter.

"You really are insatiable, aren't you?" Tsubasa laughed. "Well, I suppose breakfast can wait..."

Some time later, they settled down to a makeshift breakfast on the couch, feeding each other bites of food between kisses. They had showered together (which had further delayed breakfast), and Ash was wearing a borrowed cotton kimono, which he had to admit made a comfortable substitute dressing gown or bathrobe. He had felt a little silly when he first donned it, but Tsubasa had assured him that he looked very handsome. Tsubasa, of course, looked beautiful in his own kimono, with his damp hair falling loose and unbound across his shoulders. 

Ash felt a little giddy with happiness as he took a piece of fruit from Tsubasa's fingers with his mouth, brushing his lips against his lover's fingertips as he did so. It almost felt like they were newlyweds--living together, waking up together and making love in the morning, even kissing and laughing over breakfast like a couple of lovestruck idiots. He was hard-pressed now to recall why he had been so frightened of taking a permanent mate. Living with someone was actually rather nice. Well, he lived with his pack, of course, but that wasn't quite the same thing. 

Then reality suddenly intruded on his euphoria as he recalled something Kai had told him about Tsubasa going out on a date with a woman in Hogsmeade, and the fruit he had just eaten seemed to get stuck halfway down his throat.

"What's wrong, Ash?" Tsubasa asked, looking concerned by the sudden change in expression on his face.

Ash coughed and forced himself to swallow. "Um...this may sound a little odd, but...do you have a girlfriend?"

Tsubasa seemed bewildered by the question. "No, of course not. Why would you ask such a thing?"

Torn between relief and suspicion, Ash replied defensively, "Well, Kai said he saw you--no, wait, that's not right." He paused to try and remember exactly what his pack brother had told him. "The girls at Gladrags saw you walking arm-in-arm with a pretty Japanese woman who called you 'sweetie'. She was looking at a robe in the shop window there. And afterwards, the two of you went to Puddifoot's."

Tsubasa burst into laughter and said, "You idiot, that was my mother!"

"Your...mother?" Ash asked weakly, feeling very much like an idiot, indeed.

"Yes, my stepmother Reiko," Tsubasa replied, still laughing. "Didn't I tell you that she was only eighteen when she met my father? And on top of that, she looks young for her age, so I suppose we might have looked more like sweethearts than mother and son to a stranger. I can't wait to tell her; she'll be thrilled to hear that someone mistook her for my girlfriend."

"I'm sorry," Ash apologized, smiling sheepishly. "It's just...it was right after we had that fight, and I wouldn't have blamed you if you decided to start seeing someone else. I thought maybe she was some old flame from Japan..."

"You idiot," Tsubasa repeated affectionately, leaning over to give him a kiss. "Even if I was seeing someone else--which I most definitely am not--it wouldn't be a woman. Didn't Takeshi and Aric tell you that I'm gay?"

"Um, well, Aric did," Ash mumbled, blushing. "But I thought maybe he was mistaken."

"Well, he wasn't," Tsubasa said firmly, then grinned. "Although I must admit that I am a little flattered that you were jealous."

"Werewolves are possessive lovers," Ash growled softly, shoving their breakfast plates aside. He pulled Tsubasa close, tugging at the sash wrapped around his waist to loosen it so that he could slide one hand beneath Tsubasa's kimono. He knew that Tsubasa was wearing nothing under it because they had gotten dressed--so to speak--together after showering, and that knowledge titillated the wolf. He growled again, nipping at his lover's throat, reveling in the sensation of smooth, warm skin beneath his fingers, while Tsubasa began fumbling with Ash's kimono, eager to return the favor.

"Excuse me!" a voice called from the fireplace, and both Ash and Tsubasa jumped, turning to see Kingsley Shacklebolt's face staring at them through green flames. The Auror coughed and turned away for a moment as Ash and Tsubasa hastily pulled apart and straightened their robes.

"Sorry, didn't mean to...er...interrupt," Shacklebolt said, his voice hovering somewhere between amusement and embarrassment.

"Not at all, Mr. Shacklebolt," Tsubasa said calmly. "What can we do for you?" His kimono was now wrapped securely around his body, and he sat in a relaxed position, his face schooled into an expression of polite attention. Only a faint hint of pink staining his cheeks indicated that he was anything other than completely composed.

Ash, on the other hand, was rather disgruntled about the interruption. "So who got killed this time?" he asked sarcastically, but when the Auror's face suddenly turned grave and sober, he realized that his half-joking question was no joke, after all. "Come on!" he protested. "Both my parents are dead; I don't have any relatives left to murder!" Well, there were the Parkers, his mother's kin, but Ash had seen them only a handful of times as a child, and didn't really think of them as family. And then his face went pale as he remembered that he did have one blood relative left that he cared about. "Laura!" he gasped. "Is she--"

"She's fine, as far as I know," Shacklebolt assured him. "A street vendor was killed in an apparent werewolf attack last night, an Octavius Pepper. Do you know him?"

"Not really, although I know of him," Ash replied, frowning. "He sells bargain-price potions, and let's just say that you get what you pay for. He's neither a friend nor a foe to the werewolves. Wait a minute...last night wasn't a full moon. But Takeshi told the pack about some Dark artifact that was stolen...?"

"An artifact that supposedly allows a werewolf to transform at any time of the month," Shacklebolt confirmed in a grim voice. "Dawlish, as you can imagine, is beside himself, and he's ordered that all the werewolves be brought in for questioning." Before Ash could object, the Auror added wearily, "And no, I don't think that you or any of your pack are guilty, but we have to do something to appease Dawlish or he might go to further extremes. As a matter of fact, he's trying to get a search warrant for the townhouse right now."

"What?!" Ash roared, leaping to his feet.

"Calm down, Randolf," Shacklebolt urged. "As long as he doesn't find the medallion there, he can't charge you or your pack with the murder." He gave Ash a hard stare and added sharply, "And there isn't any other contraband on the premises, is there? You're all supposed to be leading respectable lives now."

"Only as respectable as you humans will let us be," Ash replied bitterly, avoiding Shacklebolt's question. Ash was careful not to keep any contraband in the house, especially after his last arrest--unless Dawlish could find an excuse to arrest him for possessing video games again--but he wasn't sure if the other werewolves were as careful. They wouldn't have any Dark Magic artifacts, of course, but Dawlish would take advantage of whatever excuse he could find to arrest a scapegoat.

Shacklebolt sighed wearily, then said, "I don't blame you for being angry, but please, let's just get this over with," making an obvious effort to sound polite and placating. "Once the interview is over, you can leave, but it's going to be a long day for us. I think that Dawlish expects us to interview every werewolf in the country."

The majority of the werewolves in England belonged to Lukas's pack, but there was also a significant number that did not belong to the pack, mostly because they were still trying to pass as human. Some still had the support of their families and had not fallen into such dire straits that they had needed to join a band of smugglers and thieves, while others hated the part of them that was wolf so much that they couldn't bring themselves to openly acknowledge their lycanthropy as the pack did, not even if they were starving. 

Under the equal rights bill, werewolves were no longer required to register with the Ministry, but Ash had no doubt that the old registry still existed somewhere, even if it had been tucked into some closet or file cabinet, and that Dawlish would dig it up to look for suspects if the pack eluded his grasp. Ash had never really trusted the Ministry to keep its promises, not even after the werewolves had been lauded as heroes after the war ended, and now it looked like his cynicism was being proven correct.

Ash didn't think that he would be arrested today, but he had the uneasy feeling that one day soon he might walk into the Ministry and never walk out again. The werewolves were protected only so long as Arthur Weasley remained Minister of Magic, and he was well aware of how shaky Weasley's position was at the moment.

Sensing his reluctance, Tsubasa said, "I'll go with you. And you should contact your lawyer."

"All right," Ash told the Auror, giving in against his better judgment. "Give us a few minutes to get dressed and call Ms. De Lacy."

"That's fine," Shacklebolt said, and his face vanished, along with the green flames. Ash supposed that was a good sign; at least he was being allowed to come in voluntarily, without the Aurors being sent to drag him in forcibly. For now, anyway.

Morrigan De Lacy met them at the Ministry, looking slightly harried; he supposed she had a lot to deal with, since she was also working for Snape, defending him against the alleged "rival heir". Lukas was there also, and he had worked himself into a fury. When Ash and Tsubasa arrived, he was shouting at Shacklebolt about Dawlish and his search warrant while Arthur Weasley and Morrigan tried to calm him down.

"How could you allow this?!" Lukas snarled at Arthur. "You claimed to be our friend, or was that all talk?"

"Lukas!" Morrigan hissed, her stern gaze silently reprimanding him. Even Ash knew that insulting the Minister of Magic generally wasn't a good idea, but Arthur didn't take offense. 

"I'm sorry, Lukas," Arthur said, looking weary and guilty. "The Ministry is in an uproar, and I thought it would be best to prove that the werewolves have nothing to hide. Trying to block the search warrant would only lead to more claims of conspiracies."

"The Minister is in a very difficult position," Morrigan scolded. "He is doing our best to help us, at the risk of his own career."

"I know, I know," Lukas growled apologetically. "Sorry, Arthur."

"No offense taken," Arthur assured him with a faint smile. "I don't blame you for being angry. But I know that the search will come up empty, and Dawlish can't convict anyone without evidence, at least as long as I am Minister."

"Forgive me if I don't find that as comforting as I should," Lukas muttered sarcastically. Morrigan glared at him again, but Arthur just sighed; he knew as well as anyone else that his days as Minister were numbered.

"I've sent Tonks and Harry along with Dawlish to conduct the search," Arthur added. "Just to make sure that Richard doesn't get a little, shall we say, overzealous."

"Like planting false evidence?" Lukas asked with a bitter smile.

Somewhat to Ash's surprise, Arthur replied, "No, not even Dawlish would stoop that low. He's always been a by-the-book type of Auror, and he wouldn't plant false evidence, although he would take advantage of any legal loophole that he could find. I was more worried that he might vent his spite by trashing the house during the search, as he and Williamson did when they searched the Nott residence after the war ended."

Lukas and Ash exchanged skeptical looks. They didn't have as much faith in Dawlish's integrity, but they remained silent and did not contradict the Minister's words.

Shacklebolt began the interviews, and soon the other members of the pack started arriving, in varying degrees of anger, fear, and confusion. Eventually Dawlish, Tonks, and Harry returned, and judging by the look on Dawlish's face, their search hadn't proved very fruitful.

"We did not find the medallion, or any other Dark Magic artifacts," Tonks declared triumphantly. "Not that I expected to, of course."

Dawlish gave her a sour look and set a small leather case down on a nearby desk, saying, "We did, however, find some enchanted lock picks hidden under the floorboards in Mrs. Lowell-Perry's room."

"I thought I told you to get rid of those," Lukas growled at Kyra, who smiled at him sheepishly.

"Well, but I didn't trust the Ministry," she protested weakly. "I thought maybe someday they'd reinstate the anti-werewolf laws, and we'd have to return to our old way of life." She glared at Dawlish, and added in a more defiant voice, "And with the way things are going, I'd say that I'm not far off the mark!"

"But she hasn't used them since the war ended," Brian added earnestly. "She's been working an honest job at the Magical Menagerie."

"The case was covered with dust," Harry added helpfully as Dawlish glared at him. "Which means it hadn't been touched in a long time."

"Also, these picks could have opened physical locks, but they're not powerful enough to disable the warding spells employed by the museum," Tonks chimed in. 

"Then it seems unlikely that these particular lock picks were used in the museum break-in," Morrigan said smoothly. "And Mr. Potter's statement seems to confirm that the lock picks were not used in some time, and it is my understanding that the werewolves were tacitly forgiven their previous crimes in exchange for their help in fighting the Death Eaters."

"That is true," Arthur agreed.

"Well then," Morrigan said pleasantly, "it seems to me that Mrs. Lowell-Perry is only guilty of the relatively minor offense of being in possession of an unauthorized magical item. Please refresh my memory, Ms. Tonks. What would be the penalty for such a crime?"

"Harry?" Tonks prompted, apparently testing the trainee Auror's store of knowledge.

"Um..." the boy said hesitantly. "For simple possession not connected to the actual commission of a theft...it should be a fine of fifty Galleons and/or up to a month in prison?"

"Correct," Tonks said approvingly. "And really, Arthur, I think we can forgo the prison sentence in this case, don't you?"

Dawlish started to protest, but Arthur waved off his objections impatiently. "Honestly, Richard, don't we have more important things to do--like catching a murderer, for instance? Confiscate the lock picks and fine Kyra and be done with it."

Dawlish snatched up the leather case and said sullenly, "You'll have to pay the fine before you leave here today."

"You owe me fifty Galleons, and you'll pay back every Knut, even if you have to do it in installments," Lukas said, glaring at Kyra, who nodded meekly. "I'll have to stop by Gringotts." He added sarcastically, "Unless I'm under arrest?"

"Get out of here," Dawlish growled, sounding almost like a wolf himself, and Lukas flashed a nasty grin at him before leaving.

Interviewing all the pack members took some time, but eventually they were all given permission to leave. Many of them had verifiable alibis--some had been working, and a few had gone to the Weird Sisters concert. Others had been at home with only their packmates as an alibi, but there was nothing suspicious that they could be held for, apart from being werewolves. 

Dawlish's face was red with frustration by the time all the interviews were done, and he snarled at the other Aurors to start tracking down werewolves from the old registry, much as Ash had feared.

"But that might scare people into hiding, make them afraid to get their monthly doses of Wolfsbane Potion," Tonks argued.

"Well, where else do you suggest that I start looking for werewolves, Tonks?!" Dawlish snapped. "Perhaps you'd like to take out an ad in the Daily Prophet!"

"We should leave, before he changes his mind," Morrigan whispered, and she and Ash and Tsubasa took the Floo back to Hogwarts, where they met with Lukas, Snape, and Lupin.

"I haven't been brought in for questioning yet myself, but it's looking bad, isn't it?" Lupin asked, frowning.

"Even Dawlish isn't stupid enough to think that you're a killer, Lupin," Snape retorted. "But if he can't find the real culprit, he's going to start looking for a sacrificial lamb very soon." He turned to Lukas. "It's your people who will be in the most danger. Dawlish might have some small respect for Lupin as an Order member, but he still thinks of your pack as a band of criminals."

"Kyra was right," Lukas sighed. "This new 'respectable' life of ours was too good to last. But now we're too visible to go back to hiding in Knockturn Alley."

"I'll talk to my father," Tsubasa volunteered unexpectedly. "He's a member of the Wizards' Council in Japan, and perhaps he can get them to offer the werewolves sanctuary if you should have to flee England."

"I will do my best to protect you legally," Morrigan said. "But I think it would be wise to make provisions in the event that the law can no longer protect you. And with that in mind, I think I should leave now, so that if you should disappear in the future, I can honestly say that I do not know where you have gone. But contact me if you need anything. And Severus, don't forget about your trial."

"How can I forget?" Snape asked sourly as the lawyer vanished through the fireplace.

"We spoke of this possibility once before, when Amos and Williamson were persecuting us," Lukas said. "But what would the pack do in a foreign land where we can't speak the language?"

"It's better to be safe and figure out the rest of the details later," Snape said practically. "I also could speak to some of my colleagues in America and try to find you sanctuary there; at least they speak the same language, more or less. The Americans also seem to be slightly less prejudiced against werewolves, and they began distributing Wolfsbane Potion long before the Ministry did, although more out of practicality than altruism--it's far safer to have the werewolf population taking the potion than running around infecting people, after all. But the States do have a formal extradition treaty with Britain, which means that the authorities would be obliged to hand you back over to the Ministry if they became aware of your presence. Japan extradites only on a case-by-case basis, and Dumbledore and I have some goodwill with the council, thanks to our association with Professor Kamiyama and my work on the Wolfsbane Potion."

"Then please make the arrangements, Tsubasa, with my gratitude," Lukas said in a resigned voice. "But I hope it won't be necessary."

"So do I," Tsubasa replied. "I would hate to leave my new job, not to mention my new friends, so soon." He smiled at the occupants of the room. "I'll head to the Sakura and Portkey to Japan."

"Wait," Ash said, catching him by the arm as he turned to leave. "Tsubasa..." He wasn't quite sure what to say, especially with the others present, so he settled for, "Thank you," although it seemed inadequate.

Still, Tsubasa seemed to know what he meant, because there was a certain sense of warmth and understanding in his eyes as he met Ash's gaze. "You're welcome," he said softly, then Ash released him and he left by Floo.

Lupin and Lukas grinned at Ash knowingly, while Snape just looked impatient. "Tell your wolves to be ready to leave at a moment's notice," he instructed Lukas curtly. "We should arrange some system where you can notify them quickly if they have to leave the country."

"We could use the method that Hermione used with the D.A.," Lupin suggested. "Every member carried a coin enspelled to pass on messages with a Protean Charm. When the master coin is changed, all the others are, too."

"Clever," Snape grudgingly conceded. "Well, if that wench can manage it, so can we. Lupin and I can enchant the coins, and Diggory, you'll have the master, obviously, so that you can alert your pack if and when the time comes. I'll also speak to Dumbledore about making a few temporary Portkeys in case of emergency."

Ash's pack leader sternly instructed him not to leave the school, then departed with Snape and Lupin, still discussing magical coins and preparations to escape from Britain, and Ash was left alone to wonder what would happen to his pack, and to himself and Tsubasa, not to mention his newfound sister. He had promised Laura that she wouldn't be alone, but would it be fair to ask her to leave her home and travel to a different country with him? But if she chose to stay behind, would she be safe from his enemies? And would his budding relationship with Tsubasa survive all these added pressures? There were no easy answers, and he brooded alone over these questions as he waited for Tsubasa to return.

*** 

After all these weeks of hiding the truth, it was surprisingly easy for Tsubasa to finally confess everything to his father. Keeping Ash safe was more important than anything, including his own embarrassment and even his desire not to worry his father, and he laid out all the facts calmly and succinctly, as if he were still a scout among the tengu, reporting to his commander.

He was even more surprised when his father listened quietly with a thoughtful expression on his face, without immediately growing alarmed and agitated. When he saw the startled look on Tsubasa's face, Yokuto asked with an amused smile, "Did you really think I didn't notice that you weren't telling the entire truth in your letters, my son?" He saw a similar look on Reiko's face and added, "And you, too, my wife?" They both smiled at him sheepishly. "I'll admit that I didn't think you were hiding anything so serious as these murders, though. I just thought that you wanted to build your relationship with Ash without any interference from meddling parents, and I certainly didn't want to jeopardize things if you had finally found your mate after all these years."

Feeling a little ashamed that he had underestimated his father, Tsubasa asked humbly, "Then will you help the werewolves, Father?"

"Of course!" Yokuto replied, looking surprised that he needed to ask such a thing. "Ash is your mate, after all, and that makes his pack brothers and sisters your kin."

"Um, well, we haven't really...that is, we haven't formally decided..." Tsubasa stammered, but his father laughed, smiling at him fondly in the way that a parent smiles at a child who has just said something amusing.

"You may not have taken formal vows, but it's clear to me that you love your wolf," Yokuto said. "And if you were able to call him back to humanity from his wolf form as you said, then I think that he must love you, too. You must have faith, Tsubasa. The bond between a crane and his or her lifemate is always strong and true."

"Even if the lifemate isn't a crane?"

Yokuto smiled at his wife, who smiled at him lovingly in return. "Even so. It takes some pairs longer to realize it than others, but a bond cannot be broken, save by death."

Reiko took his hand in hers and said gently, "Even after death, love endures, although the heart may open to embrace a new love." 

"That is true, my love," Yokuto said softly, lifting Reiko's fingertips to his mouth to kiss them.

They were gazing into each other's eyes, and although he regretted interrupting such a tender moment, Tsubasa coughed to get their attention. "Ah...so you'll speak to the council about offering sanctuary to the pack, Dad?"

Yokuto smiled wryly and said, "There is a human saying, is there not, that it is easier to ask forgiveness than to ask for permission? You know how long it can take the Wizards' Council to make a decision even on trivial matters, let alone important ones. I think it would be better to quietly make preparations to bring the werewolves over, and then petition the council once they are here. I shall speak to Kamiyama-sensei about it; he is a good friend of your colleague, Snape-sensei, and father-in-law to the leader of the local werewolves, so I am sure he will be my ally. And you and Takeshi are both mated to werewolves, so they are certainly entitled to the protection of the crane clan. How many werewolves are we talking about?"

"I'm not really sure," Tsubasa admitted. "I think there are about fifty members in Lukas's pack, including the ones who don't live at the main residences. And there is a small but significant number who do not belong to the pack--perhaps twenty or so? I will have to ask Professor Lupin to be sure. The pack will do as Lukas commands, but the independent werewolves might be loathe to leave their homeland, even if their lives and freedom are in danger."

"Even fifty is a large number to introduce into our little valley," Yokuto sighed. "Kazuhiko will have a fit. Still, even he must abide by the laws of kinship. But I wonder if they might feel more comfortable living with other werewolves, if the Japanese pack will accept them?"

"The Japanese pack would probably insist that the British wolves swear allegiance to their own leader, Seiji," Tsubasa replied. "But the British pack is devoted to Lukas, and I don't think they will accept any other leader. Besides, the Japanese pack lives in isolation in the countryside, and are mostly hunters and farmers, and the British werewolves are mostly city folk."

"Then perhaps they would be more comfortable living in one of the big cities, among the Muggles," Reiko said. "And any odd behavior would be chalked up to them being foreigners. Well, don't worry, Tsubasa; we'll work something out. The main thing is to keep your friends safe. They will find sanctuary here if they need it."

"Thank you, Mom, Dad," Tsubasa said gratefully.

"I hope your friends won't need to leave their country," Yokuto said. "But no matter what happens, bring Ash home for a visit. It is only proper to introduce your mate to your parents, after all!" And despite the seriousness of the situation, he beamed happily at his son.

Tsubasa repressed a sigh, then bowed his head and obediently said, "Yes, Dad," like a dutiful son. With his human friends, it was usually their mothers who wanted to see them paired off and settled down, but Yokuto was one of the crane folk, and in his mind, it was unnatural for a crane to be alone. He'd been fretting over his son's lack of a mate for the past several years, and Tsubasa knew that he'd get no peace until he introduced Ash to his father. It might actually be a good thing for Ash to become part of a loving family, but the wary, cynical werewolf might find Yokuto's enthusiasm a bit overwhelming at first.

"But I think we should wait until things calm down," Tsubasa added, hedging a bit.

Yokuto's expression sobered. "Or until the situation becomes so dire that the werewolves have no choice but to come to Japan." He smiled wryly. "You are a warrior, and I know that it's useless to ask you to stay out of danger, especially where your mate is involved, but still--please be careful, Tsubasa."

"I will, Dad," Tsubasa promised.

"And tell your wolf that he is part of our family, and that he shall always have a home here."

*** 

Selima Snape was only half-listening to Molly Weasley during their regular afternoon tea session. Due to years of practice honed at many tedious parties, she remained aware enough of the conversation that she could have repeated Molly's tearfully expressed worries about her husband nearly word-for-word, but most of her attention was focused on reexamining her alliance with the Weasley family, coldly weighing the risks and benefits in her mind while she murmured a sympathetic "yes, dear" or "I see" every now and then to give the impression that she was actually listening.

She wondered now if she had made a mistake by too hastily linking the Snape family's reputation to Arthur Weasley's rising star, which was now rapidly falling. She had run into Priscilla Parkinson the other day, and her old "friend" had asked with malicious sweetness, "And how is your dear friend Molly Weasley doing?" Priscilla had been offended when her place in Selima's inner circle had been supplanted by Molly, whom she regarded as a blood traitor and an upstart, and no one would gloat more than Priscilla if Selima were humiliated by having her new allies fall back into poverty and disgrace.

At the time, it had seemed wise, even necessary, to ally herself with the new Minister and war hero, Arthur Weasley. Severus had just returned to the family after making his relationship with the werewolf public, and the support and friendship of the liberal Minister of Magic had helped to counteract the scorn of the Slytherin purebloods, who in turn had been weakened by their association with the Death Eaters. And she had also needed the support of the Minister to restore her old friend's son, Cyril, back to his rightful place as the head of the Diggory family.

Selima had quickly seen that the way to Weasley's heart was through his family, and it had been easy enough to win the friendship of his wife, Molly. It helped that as a girl, pure of blood but too poor to be accepted into high society, Molly had been bedazzled by tales of the gala parties at Snape Manor, and even years later, she had been thrilled when Selima had finally invited the Weasleys to the Manor for a dinner party. And Molly had been struggling in her new role as the Minister's wife, trying to deal with all the sycophants and political enemies and allies, so she had been grateful when Selima had taken her under her wing and offered advice on how to navigate the twisted and perilous maze of pureblood politics.

But now Arthur Weasley's career was in jeopardy, and if he fell, the Snapes' reputation would fall along with him, after all Selima's efforts to restore her family to its previous glory. And now, as she calmly sipped her tea, her face showing no sign of her inner struggle, she wondered if she ought to begin severing ties to the Weasleys.

"...but I am so grateful to you, Selima," Molly said warmly, her words catching Selima's attention and bringing her focus back to the conversation. "I am so grateful that you have stood by us when everyone at the Ministry seems to be turning their backs on Arthur. I don't know what I would do without you!"

Tears welled in her eyes, and Selima automatically offered her a handkerchief and made soothing noises while she tried to identify a twinge of some strange emotion that Molly's words had evoked--an emotion so foreign that it took her a few moments to realize what it was...

Guilt.

There was no reason for her to feel guilty, of course. Her relationship with Molly was a political alliance, nothing more: the Snapes benefited from the Minister's goodwill, and Molly benefited from Selima's expertise in social matters. If Molly thought there was more to it than that, then it was her own fault for being a foolishly sentimental Gryffindor.

Still, feigning friendship with Molly was hardly a chore. It was a novel and rather pleasant experience to spend time with someone who always said what she meant, with no hidden agendas, unlike Selima's other acquaintances--Priscilla, for example--who disguised spite and jealousy with honeyed words. The Minister's wife was always warm and open, and while Selima sometimes regarded her naivety with amused condescension, there was a certain comfort in being able to relax in Molly's company without always having to be on guard and watch for a dagger hidden behind the other woman's back--figuratively speaking, mostly, but in Slytherin circles that could occasionally be quite literal.

And of course there was the fact that Molly Weasley was an incredible cook--even better than Vorcher, with all his house-elf magic. Even her worry for her husband had not affected her baking skills, Selima noted as she bit into one of the apple tarts Molly had brought for tea; the crust was light and flaky, and the filling had just the right combination of sweetness and tartness, with neither overpowering the other. Of course, pastry-making skills mattered little in the overall political scheme of things, but it was one point to be taken into consideration.

There was also loyalty to be considered. The Weasleys had never doubted Severus during his tenure as an Order member--Arthur, because he put supreme faith in Dumbledore's word, and the Headmaster had vouched for Severus, while Molly had seen Severus's concern for his Slytherin charges, and in her mind, anyone who was concerned about the welfare of a child could not be evil. This contradicted the fact that some of the Death Eaters had loved their children, but Selima did not disabuse Molly of her idealistic notions. And the Weasleys had continued to stand by Severus even after he had scandalously made his affair with the werewolf public.

It was true that loyalty mattered more to Gryffindors than Slytherins, but Slytherins had their own unique sense of honor, although the Gryffindors found it difficult to comprehend. Selima grudgingly acknowledged that the Snapes owed the Weasleys a debt of sorts for their loyalty, and besides, it helped to have at least one ally who was unswervingly loyal, who would not prove fickle when the winds of political change blew, as they inevitably would. 

Whatever debts she owed the Weasleys, Selima would never sacrifice her own family to save them, especially if such an attempt would be futile--that indeed would be Gryffindor foolishness. However, if she could find a way to help salvage Arthur Weasley's career, that would satisfy the demands of honor--and incidentally, prevent the Snape family from being dragged down along with the Minister.

And with that thought, Selima decided on her course of action. Perhaps she had been hasty in allying with the Weasleys, but her family's fate was now inextricably bound with theirs, and it was too late to disentangle the two. Besides, her old allies would never willingly support a Lord who was not only openly homosexual, but the lover of a werewolf--the worst kind of non-human in the eyes of the pureblood elite, because it could so easily taint the blood of a human with a single bite. 

Selima had probably proved herself a traitor in their eyes long before now, when she had championed Cyril Diggory (formerly Lukas Bleddri) as the rightful heir of the Diggory family over Amos. That had been pure sentiment, as bad as any Gryffindor's, but she had always had a soft spot for Cyril's late mother Anya, her childhood companion and best friend, the one person she had loved and trusted without reservation.

Selima held most of the same ideals and prejudices as the rest of the purebloods; she did not precisely approve of werewolves in particular or non-humans in general--it was only that she made an exception for Cyril, because he was Anya's son, and she tolerated Lupin because he belonged to Severus. But the pureblood elite would not see it that way; they probably saw her as a blood traitor as bad as the Weasleys, and only her wealth and status had kept them from openly turning against her up until now. Cutting ties to the Weasleys would not change their minds; therefore, her only option was to make sure that Arthur Weasley remained in power. She had no idea how she was to achieve such a thing, but she felt better for having finally made a decision, for good or for ill.

"I was thinking that perhaps we should have Bill and Fleur postpone their wedding," Molly was saying tearfully, still dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief. "Until this whole mess is resolved, one way or the other."

"No," Selima said firmly. "If you do, you will be admitting weakness in the eyes of the purebloods, and they will fall on you like..." She paused, smiling ironically. "Like wolves scenting blood on a wounded animal. Above all, Arthur must appear to remain strong and confident, and carry on as if nothing were wrong. He must not compromise himself."

"But isn't that why the other Ministry officials turned against him?" Molly asked doubtfully. "Because he wouldn't compromise?"

"Perhaps, but if he changes now only when his popularity is falling, that is another sign of weakness," Selima replied. "At worst, they will oust him because he has not the strength to oppose them, or at best, keep him on as a puppet Minister to do their bidding. Besides, do you really want Arthur to compromise himself? Would you want him to restore the Registry and the anti-werewolf laws, and remove Professor Lupin from his post at Hogwarts?"

"No, I suppose not," Molly sighed. "Although I admit there were times in the past when I wished Arthur would play politics a little better, and get himself out of the Muggle Artifacts office and into something more prestigious. He drove me to distraction at times, but I am proud of him for always standing by his beliefs." Although there were still lines of worry on her face, she laughed. "I used to wish he were more ambitious, and suddenly he became Minister of Magic without even seeking the position! But I wouldn't want him to remain Minister if that meant turning his back on his friends, like Remus and Mr. Randolf."

"We will see to it that he remains Minister while retaining his beliefs," Selima said adamantly. "Although it wouldn't hurt if he very discreetly cultivated a few alliances behind the scenes." She frowned. "I should have advised him to do so earlier, before things came to such a pass." That was definitely a mistake; she had known that Arthur Weasley lacked subtlety, and she should have acted to bolster her ally's position before it became so weakened. Well, there was no point in crying over spilt milk; now she would have to act to rectify those earlier mistakes. 

"But you just said that Arthur shouldn't compromise," Molly protested.

"I don't mean that he should pacify his critics by reversing his policies," Selima explained. "But there are a few independents in the Ministry whose support he might cultivate--Amelia Bones, for one. She comes from an old pureblood family, but has little patience for the usual lot of toadies and sycophants. And the werewolves saved the life of Arnold Peasegood's little girl, so Arthur might remind him of the debt that he owes them. Also, Erika Dietrich, though new to the Ministry, is the heiress of a wealthy pureblood family, and might therefore have some clout with her peers. Her younger brother is a werewolf in Cyril's pack, and she still seems to care for him although her family has disowned him. I am sure she would not want to see her brother suffer if the Ministry resumes their persecution of werewolves. And of course Arthur is already friends with Sirius Black and Harry Potter. Despite his heritage, Black doesn't really carry much clout with the purebloods because of his estrangement from his family, but his wife comes from an old and respected clan." 

Never mind that the Blackmore "clan" currently consisted only of Lady Branwen and her unborn child, or that "respected" was a polite euphemism for "feared"; sometimes a little fear was necessary to command respect. "And Black's godson is the Boy Who Lived, the Savior of the Wizarding World. That will carry some weight with public opinion. Mr. Potter appears to be a modest young man, which is most commendable, but I am sure he can overcome his distaste for publicity if it will help a friend."

Molly began to look a little more hopeful. "I'll give Arthur your advice; I know that Harry and Sirius and Branwen will do whatever they can to help him. I'm not so sure of the others, but even if they do offer him their support, will that be enough to overcome his enemies?"

"Perhaps not in and of itself, but..." Selima's voice trailed off as she pursed her lips in thought, and then a smile slowly spread across her face as an idea occurred to her. "But if something should occur to distract your husband's enemies..." Her smile, smug and sleek, and her dark eyes, glinting with a hint of malice, caused Molly to smile back at her nervously. "Please leave everything to me, Molly dear," Selima purred.

"Ah...yes, Selima," Molly said obediently, if a little doubtfully. And foolish Gryffindor or not, she was wise enough not to ask for any details.

*** 

Arthur took Selima's advice with a grain of salt, but had to admit that it was sound. He was not quite as naive as people thought he was, and he was familiar enough with Lady Selima's reputation to know that she never did anything unless it benefited the Snape family. Even her scheme to help Lukas become Lord of the Diggory family had indirectly aided the Snapes, as it made lycanthropy a little more acceptable to the public at large, and therefore made Snape and Remus a slightly less scandalous couple--though only slightly.

So Arthur had been aware from the beginning that Selima's newly-conceived friendship for his wife was not purely altruistic. Still, he was grateful that she was kind to Molly, because he knew that his wife would have been crushed if her girlhood idol had treated her as scornfully as most of the other wealthy pureblood women did. As long as Molly was happy, Arthur didn't mind too much if Selima occasionally dropped his name among her friends or requested his presence at a dinner party. 

Fortunately, unlike some of his colleagues, Lady Snape was subtle and would never do anything so crass as to openly ask him to pass a particular piece of legislation or offer a sinecure to some friend or relative. Nor would she ever offer him a cash bribe to do her a favor, or even worse, hint that she wanted a bribe in exchange for doing HIM a favor--again, as all too many of his colleagues had.

Edward Tierney, the Head of International Magical Cooperation, was one of them. He was a typical snobbish pureblood, but Arthur had promoted him to his current position after the war ended, and in exchange, Tierney had staunchly supported all of Arthur's reforms. Despite what Selima thought, Arthur did understand the need to play politics, although he wasn't very good at it, and avoided it as much as possible.

That little arrangement had worked well enough until Aric Dietrich, the fiance of Tierney's daughter, had been turned into a werewolf. Tierney, although no Death Eater, was still intent upon keeping his family's blood as pure as possible, and had immediately broken off the engagement. Privately, Arthur had thought that was a good thing, since neither of the young people had wished to wed each other in the first place, but Tierney was very upset that he'd lost a valuable marriage alliance. He hadn't blamed Arthur for that, but he was furious when Arthur failed to punish Lukas for biting Aric, even though the boy would have died if he hadn't. 

He grew even more resentful when Arthur gave Aric's sister Erika a position in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. He had been trying to smooth things over with the Dietrich family, who had originally been expecting Aric to enter the Ministry, but Tierney had seen this as unwanted interference, a usurpation of his position. He had been planning to give the Dietrich family a Ministry position in exchange for the marriage alliance, but now the Dietriches had the position even though Tierney had lost the alliance.

Tierney's daughter Miranda had eloped with her true love, a Healer named Augustus Pye--the same young man who had once treated Arthur for a snakebite wound a few years ago. The boy seemed intelligent and goodhearted, and moreover, shared Arthur's interest in the Muggle world, so Arthur attempted to mend things by offering Tierney's new son-in-law a job at the Ministry. However, Pye was a dedicated Healer with no interest in politics, and he politely declined the offer, so instead Arthur gave him a generous grant to pursue his research in what he called "complementary medicine," or the combining of Muggle and magical medical techniques. 

He had thought it quite a clever solution, but Tierney seemed to take this as an insult rather than a compliment, and had demanded to know why Arthur was helping his idiot son-in-law disgrace the Tierney name with all this Muggle foolishness. By this point, Arthur's considerable patience had finally snapped, and they had exchanged some heated words about pureblood politics and arranged marriages and desirable qualities in a son-in-law. Basically, he had told Tierney that he should be glad that his daughter was married to a kind man who made her happy, and that he should be proud to have a son-in-law who wanted to use his abilities to help others.

Things had gone downhill from there.

Now, as if summoned by his thoughts, Arthur's erstwhile ally appeared and flung a report down on his desk, with insolence bordering on rudeness.

"Here's the new trade agreement we negotiated with France," Tierney said curtly.

"Thank you, Edward," Arthur replied politely, trying to ignore the other man's tone of voice. "Good work."

"As if you appreciate it," Tierney sneered. 

"Of course I do," Arthur protested, and he truly did. As little as he liked the man, he had to admit that Tierney was a good diplomat when he put his mind to it. He spoke several different languages, and had a sense of charm and sophistication that had ingratiated him with the French equivalent of the Ministry. "I made you Department Head, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did," Tierney retorted. "And in return, I supported your little equal rights project."

"My 'little project'?" Arthur asked indignantly, bristling at the condescension in Tierney's words.

"But what have you done for me lately, Weasley?" Tierney continued, ignoring Arthur's brief outburst. "Other than to undermine and humiliate me?"

"If you're talking about Ms. Dietrich and Mr. Pye, I've told you many times--"

"Don't bother trying to justify yourself," Tierney interrupted impatiently. "It's too little, too late. You never did know how to play the game, Weasley. It was only a fluke that you got this job in the first place. In hindsight, I'm amazed that you've held onto it as long as you have."

"I'm amazed that the Ministry has lasted as long as it has," Arthur retorted in a cold voice. "You, and the others like you, seem to have forgotten its original purpose--to serve and protect the people of the wizarding world. Instead, you act as though it exists only to serve your own personal ambitions."

"And that attitude is exactly why you won't be Minister for much longer!" Tierney snapped. "I could've helped you if you'd been willing to listen to my advice, but now it's too late!"

"Advice like betraying a friend?" Arthur asked sharply. "Or locking up innocent people to soothe the public's fears and provide a false sense of safety?"

"Fine!" Tierney snarled. "Suit yourself, but don't come crying to me when the Wizengamot shows up asking for your head on a platter!"

He stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind him, and Arthur sighed wearily. He supposed that it was time to follow Lady Selima's advice. Of course, all of her considerable cleverness had not prevented her husband from losing his position many years ago, but Severin Snape had been a proud and stubborn man--too stubborn, perhaps, to listen to his wife's advice when it conflicted with his pride. 

Arthur didn't have that luxury. If he were the only one affected, he would gladly give up this job in a heartbeat, but there were too many people who would suffer if the wrong person replaced him--someone like Edward Tierney, for example, who had supported the werewolves when it had benefited him to do so, but would just as easily abandon them now that they were of no use to him.

*** 

Amelia Bones did not exactly pledge her support outright, but said that she would vote with her conscience, as always. She had backed his reforms in the past, and she agreed that most of the people competing for his position would do more harm than good as Minister, but she also said that the current chaotic situation could not be allowed to continue much longer.

"Someone must restore peace and stability to the wizarding world," she said gravely. "I hope it will be you, Arthur."

And with that, he had to be content. At least he could trust her to always be strict but fair, and to be immune to bribery and threats.

Arnold Peasegood had not forgotten the debt that he owed the werewolves, and was eager to do anything he could to help. He wasn't a Department Head, but he promised to exert whatever influence he had over his colleagues. He had already sent a few indignant letters to the editor to the Daily Prophet, and he also began badgering Rita Skeeter for an interview, urging her to present "a complete and unbiased story" to her readers.

Erika Dietrich was more cautious, but she agreed that the current policies regarding non-humans should remain intact. "I love my brother," she said quietly. "And of course I don't want to see the old anti-werewolf laws reinstated. But I am the most junior member in my department, and I doubt that my opinion would carry much weight with my colleagues."

"As a new employee, perhaps not," Arthur replied. "But as the Dietrich heiress..."

Erika smiled, regarding Arthur with an appraising look, one that seemed to convey a new degree of respect for him, although she had never been anything less than polite to him before. "Very well, Minister," she said. "I'll do what I can, although I must be subtle about it. My grandfather is still head of the family, and he still flies into a rage if anyone dares to utter the word 'werewolf' in his presence."

"I understand," Arthur said. "I am grateful for whatever assistance you can offer, Ms. Dietrich. I shall rely upon your discretion."

"Still, catching the killer will do far more good than any amount of political maneuvering," Erika said practically. She frowned for a moment, then mused out loud, "Hmm...perhaps I should pay Henry Bletchley a visit. It would only be polite to thank him for attending my party."

"Of course," Arthur agreed. "And I am sure that he would be flattered if you expressed an interest in his work."

Erika just smiled coquettishly in reply, but there was a determined and cunning glint in her dark eyes that reminded Arthur uncomfortably of Selima Snape. He was very glad that Erika was on his side, and he didn't envy Bletchley for being the object of that determination.

*** 

Sirius and Harry instantly pledged their support, of course, and Arthur smiled at them gratefully, the tension in his face easing slightly. But later, over dinner, Harry questioned his godfather about the situation.

Branwen had been in contact with both Molly and Selima, and she had invited Kingsley, Tonks, Snape, and Lupin over to Grimmauld Place that night to "talk strategy". 

"I do want to help Mr. Weasley," Harry said, a little uneasily. "But what exactly am I supposed to be doing?"

"Oh, really, Potter," Snape said with an exaggerated sigh, rolling his eyes. "You aren't a child anymore, so try not to act like one. Although I suppose one can't expect a Gryffindor of any age to act with a semblance of maturity."

"Severus," Branwen said sternly, but with a hint of a smile playing on her lips, while Harry ground his teeth together.

"Very well, I shall spell it out for you, then, Mr. Potter," Snape said, affecting an air of long-suffering resignation. "You are the Boy Who Lived, the Savior of the Wizarding World, the one who defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." The Potions Master's face grew a little more sour than usual. "You are, in short, a hero. Or at least, you are regarded as one by people who do not know you as well as I do."

"Be nice, Sev," Lupin murmured.

Snape ignored him and continued in his customary abrasive manner, "What you should be doing is exerting your influence over the senior members of the Ministry, reminding them that you stand firmly behind Weasley as his supporter. You should also be countering the bad publicity in the Daily Prophet by giving Skeeter an interview of your own, reminding her of your and Weasley's heroism in the war, and assuring her that the Aurors will soon bring the killer to justice." He added sarcastically, "After all, catching a stray werewolf should be nothing compared to defeating the Dark Lord."

"Do I really have to talk to Skeeter?" Harry groaned.

Sirius patted him sympathetically on the shoulder. "I hate to say it, but I think Snape's right, Harry."

"I am touched by your overwhelming support, Black."

"Oh, stuff it, Snape! I said I agreed, didn't I?"

"Children, children," Branwen scolded, and Lupin and Tonks snickered as Sirius and Snape shot a quick glare at their former teacher. Harry noted, with some amusement, that neither of them tried to talk back to her, though. Even though Sirius was now married to Branwen and liked to tease her on occasion, he could still be intimidated by his wife when she went into what he called "demonic Professor Blackmore mode".

Snape adjusted his robes slightly, as if he were gathering his dignity about him, and lectured in a cool voice, "However, Potter, you must remember that your glories and your accomplishments lie in the past." Sirius gave him an affronted look, and Snape said irritably, "Don't give me that look, Black; you know it's true! The people of the wizarding world have short memories for the most part. They needed you to be their savior, but now that Voldemort is dead, your usefulness to them is over. They will allow your past glories to beguile them for a time, but if the killings continue, they will begin to doubt and question."

Harry nodded, his irritation at Snape fading as he thought back to his fifth year at Hogwarts. "Like when the Ministry tried to convince everyone that I was crazy when I told them about Voldemort coming back. Being the Boy Who Lived didn't matter then." He smiled wryly. "I was just the Boy Who Was a Nutter."

"Exactly, Potter," Snape said with a very faint, cynical smile. "So by all means, go ahead and give interviews and use your influence while you can. But remember that you are only buying time. What will help Weasley more than anything is doing your jobs as Aurors--" His gaze flickered over towards Kingsley and Tonks, including them in his statement. "--and apprehending the killer."

Kingsley scowled, obviously taking Snape's words as an insult, although Tonks just smiled pleasantly and nodded in agreement. Snape seemed mollified by her response, or maybe he just enjoyed baiting Kingsley, because he added in an unusually civil tone of voice, "One of my contacts is sending me a few leads regarding illegal sanatoriums. I'll let you know if they result in something useful."

"If you have information, you should just give it directly to us rather than try to play amateur detective," Kingsley said disapprovingly. 

"Amateur!" Snape scoffed. "I may not be a detective or an Auror, but I was a spy for two decades, and I believe that I am far more skilled than you at extracting information from people! Besides, these leads are in Europe, where you have no official jurisdiction."

"And if we try to go through official channels with the foreign governments, our suspects might get wind of it and fly the coop, so to speak," Tonks chimed in.

"Correct, Miss Tonks," Snape said, looking a little startled. "Surprisingly sensible, for a Gryffindor."

Kingsley sighed irritably and muttered, not quite under his breath, "Does everything that comes out of your mouth have to sound like an insult, Snape?"

Branwen broke into the conversation before an argument could break out. "Harry and Severus will do their part," she said briskly. "As will Sirius and myself."

"I'm persona non grata with most of the Slytherin families, war hero or not," Sirius said matter-of-factly. "But I have a few influential Gryffindor friends. I don't know how much they can help, but I'll do what I can."

"And the Blackmore name is well-respected among the old pureblood families," Branwen said pleasantly, but smiled in a very sinister manner that caused Harry to shudder a little. He had come to love his step-godmother, but he could never quite forget that she was also Professor Blackmore, who struck fear into the hearts of all Hogwarts students past and present, even Professor Snape.

Lupin saw the look on Harry's face and grinned. "Perhaps 'feared' would be a more accurate term than 'respected,'" he said cheerfully.

"Sometimes it's better to be feared than respected," Snape pointed out.

"Indeed," Branwen said smugly. "I shall let it be known that Arthur's enemies will also be making an enemy out of me." Her familiar, Bane, cawed emphatically, as if to voice his agreement.

Harry shuddered again and said fervently, "I can't believe that anyone would want to make an enemy of you, Prof...er, Branwen!"

The others all laughed, and Branwen said, "Not everyone is as wise as you are, Harry!" Snape let out a little snort of derision in response to hearing Harry described as "wise". Then Branwen's expression sobered and she said in a much more serious voice, "Although there is a certain danger in using fear to control people. For one thing, fear can command obedience, but not true loyalty. But more importantly, forcing one's will upon another person is a Dark act, even when no magic is involved."

Snape snorted again. "Says the woman who keeps her students in line by terrorizing them!"

"I admit that I am a strict teacher, although 'terrorizing' is a bit of an exaggeration," Branwen said sweetly; Sirius rolled his eyes behind her back. "But yes, it is true that Hogwarts uses the threat of punishments, such as detention and the taking of points, to keep the students in line."

"I don't think that it's detention and points that your students are afraid of," Snape muttered sarcastically.

"However," Branwen continued serenely, "while it may be slightly unethical, I believe that a bit of subtle intimidation is a lesser evil than allowing innocent people to be persecuted, which will likely happen if Arthur loses his job."

Harry ate in silence, mulling things over as he listened to the others plan further strategy, debating over which people should be flattered and which should be threatened, and how to best approach them. He sighed unhappily; this reminded him of the old days, before Voldemort had been defeated, when they'd had to work around the obstacles the Ministry threw in their path, whether it was Lucius Malfoy's scheming or Cornelius Fudge's stubborn refusal to believe in Voldemort's return. And then he frowned as that made him realize something...

"Branwen?" he asked hesitantly.

"Yes, dear?" she replied with a smile.

"I realize that people are frightened by the murders," Harry said slowly, trying to work things out in his mind. "But why are they trying so hard to push Mr. Weasley out of the Ministry when Fudge never got fired even though he lied about Voldemort coming back and let the Death Eaters escape from Azkaban--twice?" He paused, then to be fair, reluctantly added, "Well, he didn't personally let them escape, but Professor Dumbledore warned him that the Dementors couldn't be trusted, and he wouldn't listen."

"And he let an alleged mass-murderer escape on his watch," Kingsley added. "Ah...no offense, Black."

Sirius winced at the memory of his imprisonment in Azkaban, but just said, "None taken."

"A good question, Harry," Branwen said approvingly, the way she might if a student said something clever during class.

"I should think it would be obvious," Snape said with a touch of scorn, obviously disagreeing. "The answer is simple, Potter: politics. Fudge was careful to cultivate powerful allies, while Weasley was not. To put it bluntly, he bribed his supporters, either outright with gold or with cushy Ministry positions. And when something went wrong, he always looked for others to take the blame."

"He turned on Dumbledore," Harry recalled. "After we tried to tell him that Voldemort had come back, he started spreading lies about us, that I was a liar and a showoff, and that Dumbledore was crazy."

"Exactly," Lupin said, nodding. "He had convinced himself that Dumbledore wanted to take his position, so he immediately went on the offensive and set about discrediting his rival. Despicable, but..."

"But practical," Snape finished. "Weasley could learn a thing or two from Fudge, even if he was a cowardly, toadying bastard. Sometimes you Gryffindors are too idealistic for your own good."

"Arthur isn't the type to resort to threats and blackmail," Lupin said gently.

"If he wants to be Minister, he needs to accept the necessity of getting his hands dirty once in awhile," Snape retorted impatiently. "My mother is always collecting gossip and secrets. She doesn't use all of them, but she says that it's important to have the information on hand in case you do need it someday. You never know when you might need to blackmail someone."

Harry was about to object that blackmail wasn't honorable, but then he remembered how Hermione had blackmailed Rita Skeeter in order to make her stop writing false stories, and he smiled a little. "Maybe not all Gryffindors are overly idealistic, Professor."

Snape gave him a puzzled look, then said, "Leave the blackmail to myself and Branwen, Potter. You go and make nice with the Daily Prophet, and dazzle the Ministry underlings with your shining reputation."

Lupin smiled apologetically at Harry, who sighed and swallowed the retort that was forming on his lips. "Yes, Professor," he said through gritted teeth. Helping Mr. Weasley was more important than fighting with Snape, and besides, if he was going to wait for Snape to be polite to him, he'd be waiting until hell froze over. 

Harry thought it was a pity, though, that Snape couldn't appreciate how much he'd matured since he'd first started at Hogwarts, and how much control it took to not just bark out an angry response, as he would have done a year or two earlier. But Lupin winked at him, and Sirius and Branwen smiled at him approvingly, so it seemed that others had noticed, even if Snape hadn't. In spite of his worries, Harry grinned, which caused Snape to stare at him suspiciously, which only made Harry's grin grow even broader.

*** 

Meanwhile, Selima was busy putting her own plan into action, dropping bits of poisonous gossip into receptive ears. She had put together a list of Arthur's enemies, the chief of which was his former supporter, Edward Tierney. She couldn't speak to Tierney directly without arousing his suspicion, so she had lunch one afternoon with Elaine Baddock, who was friendly with Tierney's wife.

"I hear that Arthur Weasley's days are numbered, Selima," Elaine said smugly.

"Indeed, it seems that you are right," Selima said with false humility, and the other woman gloated. It only proved what an idiot Elaine was, because after all these years, she should have realized that Selima was never humble. "I hear that Edward Tierney is a candidate to take over his position when the time comes."

"I've heard that, too," Elaine said happily, still relishing her imagined triumph over Selima.

"But he'd best watch his step around Dirk Cresswell," Selima added in an offhand manner.

"Cresswell?" Elaine asked, looking confused. "Let's see, he's in which department...?"

"He's the Head of the Goblin Liaison Office."

"Oh yes, that's right. But does he really have enough backing to challenge Edward?"

"He has goblin gold," Selima replied in a hushed voice, as if sharing a secret. "That will buy him all the backing he needs."

"Oh, of course!" Elaine whispered, lowering her voice to match Selima's. "The goblins control all the gold in Gringotts, after all..."

"Exactly," Selima said. The goblins probably were passing bribes to Cresswell to gain favorable treatment, although she doubted that they were planning to make him Minister. Still, it would sound plausible enough to most people, since goblins had a reputation for being secretive and devious--and of course, wealthy.

"But it's a secret, so you must promise me that you won't tell anyone else about it," Selima whispered, knowing that one of the surest ways to spread gossip around the wizarding world was to tell a secret to Elaine.

"Oh, I promise, Selima," Elaine said, her eyes gleaming avidly.

*** 

Selima dropped a few other tidbits of information--both true and false--to various people. However, it would arouse suspicion if too much of this kind of gossip could be traced back to her, so she enlisted the aid of a few allies.

"I think my Department Head, Bob Porter, might make a play for the Minister's position once Weasley is deposed," Erika confided in her mother over tea. 

"Really?" Alison asked eagerly, pleased to have a bit of prime gossip to pass on to her friends. "What gall! He only just took over Amos Diggory's position this summer!" When a new Minister of Magic was selected, he or she was usually chosen from the ranks of the Department Heads, but it would be rare for someone with only a few months of experience as Head to be a candidate. There were always exceptions to that unwritten rule, though--Dumbledore had once been offered the job, even though he had never worked at the Ministry, and previous Ministers had bribed their way into the position with gold and political favors.

"Yes, but he was friends with Amos Diggory, and he has the backing of all Diggory's former supporters," Erika lied blithely. It was true that Porter had been a friend of Amos, but he wasn't considering a run at the Minister's position, and in fact, was actually backing Tierney as Weasley's replacement. 

But Tierney was a Slytherin, and as such, was always prepared for his allies to betray him. He wouldn't have any trouble believing that Porter meant to stab him in the back, either literally or figuratively, and the more Porter protested his innocence, the more Tierney would become convinced that he was lying. Sometimes, Erika thought with a smug little smile, Slytherin paranoia could be useful. 

"Remember, you didn't hear this from me," Erika cautioned her mother. It was a calculated risk, spreading rumors about her supervisor, because she would probably be fired if he found out about it. However, she would have risked a great deal more in order to protect her brother. Besides, if this worked, then Lady Selima would owe her a favor, and a favor from the legendary dowager of the Snape family was more priceless than gold.

"Of course, darling," Alison said, sounding a little hurt. "I would never jeopardize your job. I shall be the soul of discretion."

Only if being the "soul of discretion" meant spreading the gossip among all her friends, but since that was what Erika wanted, she didn't object. Outsiders sometimes dismissed the pureblood wives as a gaggle of useless, gossiping women, but they would in turn share that gossip with their husbands--that was often how information was passed among the pureblood elite. Eventually, Tierney would hear the rumor, after it had been filtered through several different people and probably exaggerated with each telling, but that was all to the better, since that would make it harder to trace back to Erika.

*** 

Selima also enlisted the help of her cousin Ali Bashir, who was currently back in England. It was Ali's idea to use his newest apprentice, Pansy Parkinson, to help pass on the rumors that Selima had concocted.

"An excellent idea!" Selima said approvingly. Her cousin liked to play the part of the clown, but at times like these, he proved that his mind was as keen and shrewd as any merchant's. Pansy was not directly related to the Snapes, so her words would not be viewed with the suspicion that Ali's and Selima's might be. And she was a member of a prominent pureblood family, so she was in a position to easily pass on information to the people who mattered.

Pansy had a certain degree of respect, and maybe even a little affection for her former Head of House, but it was mainly because of Professor Lupin that the girl was eager to help. "I wouldn't want the old anti-werewolf laws to come back," she said earnestly. "It would be horrible if Professor Lupin had to leave Hogwarts." Selima didn't know whether to be amused or insulted, but in the end, decided it didn't really matter why Pansy wanted to help so long as she did.

Ali got a little creative, though. In addition to the rumors that Selima had very carefully crafted about Tierney, Cresswell, Porter, and a few other prominent Ministry officials, Ali created one of his own about Frank Longbottom being considered as a replacement for Arthur.

"Who would elect a Minister who's been insane for the better part of two decades?" Selima asked scornfully, annoyed that Ali would dare to meddle with her plan.

"But he's sane now, dear cousin," Ali reminded her. "And he's a hero of the war; his suffering will only make him seem even more noble and heroic."

"True," Selima grudgingly conceded. "But even so, it's extremely unlikely that he would be elected."

"Then it will just add even more confusion to the fray, and that's what we want, isn't it?" Ali replied cheerfully. "The other candidates won't be able to dismiss Longbottom entirely out of hand because of his war hero status. And it will give them another Gryffindor to hate besides Weasley."

"That's true," Selima said, in a more thoughtful voice this time.

"And besides, Miss Parkinson has already started spreading the rumor. Her mother and grandmother are probably passing it on to their acquaintances even as we speak."

"Very well, Ali," Selima sighed. "But next time, stick to the script."

"Yes, dear cousin," Ali said meekly, but with a merry twinkle in his dark eyes, and Selima sighed again.

*** 

Meanwhile, Erika was doing more than just spreading gossip. She also went to visit Henry Bletchley at the museum.

"What a pleasure to see you, Miss Die--" he started to say.

"It's Erika," she interrupted impatiently. "And this isn't a social call. I assume you know about the missing medallion?"

"Yes," Henry replied gravely, the polite smile fading from his lips. "Although I didn't know that you were aware of it."

"All the werewolves know, and my brother told me," Erika explained. "I also know that if the medallion and the rogue werewolf aren't found soon, mass panic will break out, and my brother and his friends will be in danger."

"I know," Henry said. "But I'm not sure what I can do to help. I might be able to disable the medallion, but only if I had it physically in hand."

"Isn't there some way that you can trace the magical signature of the artifact?" Erika demanded. "The Dark Prince must've had some way to control his pet werewolves and keep track of their whereabouts."

A look of keen interest and a touch of respect filled Henry's eyes. "A very sensible deduction, Miss Die...Erika. I suspect that the medallion was used to control the werewolf itself, as well as its transformation. He must have had some way to keep it from turning on him, after all. A control object of this sort is usually keyed to a master device--probably something he could easily keep on his person, such as another medallion, or possibly a ring, bracelet, or torc."

"Can you find this master device?" Erika asked eagerly.

"It's not that simple," Henry sighed. "Assuming that it actually exists, it's extremely unlikely that this device managed to survive the destruction of the tower. Even if it did, we would need to find a way to distinguish it from the other items that were found in the ruins. And even if by some miracle we could find and identify it, we would still need to figure out how to properly use it. Many of the Prince's artifacts are enspelled to injure or kill anyone who tries to use them without authorization."

"But your specialty is Dark artifacts!" Erika snapped. "If anyone can find a way to do it, surely you can!"

"I appreciate your confidence in my skills, Erika, but I think you may be overestimating them a little," Henry said with a rueful smile. "It's true that I've worked with similar artifacts in the past, but it can take years of research to learn how to use them."

"We don't have years!" Erika exclaimed in frustration. "We have only weeks at most before Weasley is deposed and the werewolves lose his protection!" She paused to take a deep breath to calm herself. Henry Bletchley was a kind man, but he had little personal incentive to help the werewolves, so she would give him some. In fact, she had already decided upon this course of action before she came to the museum.

"If you can find a way to track down the stolen medallion before the Ministry starts imposing anti-werewolf sanctions, then I will marry you and arrange an alliance between the Bletchley and Dietrich families," Erika declared in a firm voice.

"Ex...excuse me?" Henry stammered, his eyes going wide with shock and dismay.

"Oh dear," Erika said, torn between chagrin and amusement. "You don't want to marry me, do you?"

"It's not that I don't want to," Henry protested, his face turning red. "I mean, it's nothing personal--I just don't particularly want to marry anyone."

"Then why did you bother to attend my party?" Erika asked, a bit accusingly, but with genuine curiosity. "I'm sure you must have realized that its sole purpose was for prospective suitors to present themselves."

"My family made me go," Henry admitted sheepishly. "They have delusions of grandeur, and it was easier to go along with their plans than to argue with them about it. I honestly never thought that you would seriously consider me as a potential groom. You're a very beautiful and wealthy young woman, and you could have your pick of the eligible pureblood men--someone much younger and handsomer than me, surely."

"You are neither decrepit nor a mountain troll," Erika pointed out in a dry voice. "You overestimate your shortcomings, Professor Bletchley. Besides, I would rather choose a mature and intelligent man to be my husband and the father of my children than some handsome young idiot. Truthfully, you impressed me more than any of the other men at the party." She smiled slightly. "Certainly more than Marcus Flint or Phillip Bole."

Henry laughed, relaxing a little. "I am flattered, Erika, but I would make a poor husband for the heiress of a prominent family. I'm devoted to my work, which often takes me out of the country, and I have no aptitude for politics and no clue how to run an estate."

"Oh, that's not a problem," Erika assured him. "I am perfectly capable of running the estate myself--that is my duty as heir, after all. If we were to be wed, your presence would be required occasionally at certain important parties and gatherings, but other than that, I would not interfere with your work or ask you to stop traveling. But this is all hypothetical, of course. Since you do not wish to marry, an offer of my hand would be a poor incentive for your cooperation." 

She frowned, trying to think of what else she could offer that might tempt him--a grant to pursue some scholarly research, perhaps? She had no control over such things, but if Henry helped to save the Minister's job, she could probably persuade Weasley to authorize it. Of course, Henry might not believe that she had that much control over the Minister. But perhaps she could persuade Lady Selima to fund it personally...?

"You must love your brother very much, if you are willing to marry a total stranger in order to help him," Henry said quietly, with an odd expression on his face that Erika could not quite read. Puzzlement, perhaps, with a touch of wistfulness? 

"Well, of course," Erika replied matter-of-factly. "He is my brother, after all."

"I am sure that my brother would not do the same for me," Henry said with a slightly bitter smile. "At least, not unless it would benefit him in some way. But to be fair, I would not make such a sacrifice for him, either."

"Well, who can blame you?" Erika said with a casual shrug of her shoulders. "He did turn you into a toad once before, after all. Actually, Aric and I used to fight like cats and dogs." She grinned. "I gave him a black eye when he broke my favorite doll when we were children. But no matter what, he's still my little brother. No one but me is allowed to hurt him." Henry chuckled, and Erika added, "But I think you're being a little over-dramatic. It's not as if marrying you is a fate worse than death."

"No, I suppose not," Henry said, still chuckling. He paused for a moment, then said, "All right, then."

"Excuse me?"

"I'll help you," Henry said. 

"You will?" Erika asked, staring at him in surprise.

Henry nodded. "I can't promise anything," he warned, "but I'll reexamine all the artifacts and ask the Aurors to give me access to the confiscated ones, and I'll go through all the notes that the archaeological team took. I still think the chances of success are pretty slim, but I'll try my best."

"Thank you, Henry," Erika said warmly, grateful but a little bewildered. "But...what can I do for you in return?"

Henry hesitated, then smiled and said, "There isn't anything that I need right now. Why don't we just say that you'll owe me a favor?" 

Then it was Erika's turn to hesitate, torn between the desire to help her brother and the innate suspicion that was practically bred into members of the pureblood elite. Committing to a vague, open-ended favor could be dangerous when you didn't know what the person might ask for.

"I won't ask you to do anything that would cause harm or dishonor to you or your family," Henry promised, apparently sensing her misgivings. "I give you my word."

"Then we have a bargain," Erika said, extending her hand, and Henry smiled and shook it.

*** 

Unbeknownst to Erika, Henry had only asked for the favor because he knew that she would be suspicious if he asked for nothing in exchange for his help, and also because he was enough of a Slytherin to be a little embarrassed about doing something altruistic. But the truth was that he was moved by Erika's love for her brother, especially since he wasn't very close to his own family.

His mother, perhaps, felt some vague affection for her children, but his brother had enjoyed making his life miserable ever since they were children, and his father's greatest love was his own ambition. Henry's uncle, the head of the Bletchley family, had been childless for many years, so Henry's father had assumed that someday he or his sons would inherit the estate. But unexpectedly, an heir--Miles--had been born.

Henry hadn't minded, but his father became bitter and resentful, and ever since, had been constantly scheming to acquire wealth and power. His latest scheme was to marry Henry off to the Dietrich heiress, even though Henry hadn't the slightest desire to be married to anyone, heiress or not.

Although being married to Erika might not be so bad, after all. He wondered, a little wistfully, what it might be like to be part of a loving family, to have a wife who was as loyal and devoted to him as Erika was to her brother.

Then Henry shook his head and silently chided himself for thinking like a naive, idealistic Gryffindor; it wasn't as if he would gain some sort of fairy-tale family by marrying Erika. By all accounts, the elder Dietriches were no better than his father. They had disinherited the previous heir, Erika's brother, for being bitten by a werewolf, and they were essentially auctioning off the new heir to the highest bidder. As for Erika, it was true that she loved Aric, but that didn't necessarily mean that she would regard her husband with the same depth of affection, especially if her husband was a stranger to her, or at best, a casual acquaintance.

No, Henry told himself firmly, he was not getting roped into an arranged marriage by a few romantic fancies. He would stick to their bargain, do his research, and help track down the medallion if he could. And once it was over, one way or the other, he would leave England and return to his research in Egypt, regardless of what his father wanted. Maybe he would be disowned, but that would be more of a relief than a punishment, because it meant that he would never have to come back home to visit his family again.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trial to determine the Snape heir continues, while the rival heir makes plans of his own. Also, Snape and Lupin investigate sanatoriums in Europe.

The trial to determine the Snape heir resumed, and to Snape's surprise, it didn't go nearly as bad as he had imagined. Morrigan called a number of character witnesses, all of whom testified as to his courage and heroism during the war. She had considered calling in a few of Snape's colleagues to praise the contributions he had made to the field of Potions research, but his most prestigious accomplishment was the Wolfsbane Potion, and since werewolves were a rather touchy subject at the moment, Morrigan discarded that idea and focused solely on Snape's war hero image.

Several Order members testified about vital information he had obtained that had saved lives, and about how bravely he had fought the Death Eaters in the final battle. And Dumbledore testified about how Snape had risked his life working as a spy for so many years. 

"But he was originally a Death Eater, was he not?" Delauney's lawyer Bole demanded. "He did join them and serve You-Know-Who of his own free will?"

"He was, and he did," Dumbledore replied calmly. "He was young and he made a grave error in judgment. However, once he understood Voldemort's true intent, he immediately came to me and confessed everything--the very day after he was inducted into the Death Eaters, as a matter of fact. And he willingly chose to atone for his error by becoming a spy, knowing that he would likely die a slow and painful death by torture if Voldemort should ever discover his betrayal."

Bole continued trying to malign Snape's character, but Dumbledore deftly refuted each slight without ever losing his temper or raising his voice, much to Bole's frustration. However, Morrigan had saved the best for last: her final witness was Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Savior of the Wizarding World.

With a little skillful prompting from Morrigan, Potter testified that Snape had watched over and protected him during his seven years at Hogwarts, and even afterwards. "He saved my life personally on at least two separate occasions," Potter said in a firm voice. "Once during my first year at Hogwarts, when Professor Quirrell, under Voldemort's influence, was trying to hex me during a Quidditch match. And even after I left Hogwarts, when he was no longer under any obligation to protect me, he saved me from...um...Rabastan Lestrange." 

The boy stumbled slightly over his words at that point; in truth, Snape had actually been protecting him from James Potter, whose spirit had been possessing Lestrange's body. Under the influence of the Dark Magic that had temporarily summoned him back from death, James had lost control of himself and attacked his son, but it had been simpler to tell the public that the fugitive Death Eater Lestrange had been responsible--which in a sense he was, since he was the one who had summoned James as a Revenant.

In a steadier voice, Potter continued, "Professor Snape shielded me from Lestrange's spell and took the hex that was meant for me. It cut through his body like a sword, and he nearly died. He saved my life at great risk to his own."

Snape scowled as he listened to his former student's testimony; it was positively mortifying to be defended by the boy who had been a thorn in his side for the past seven years, with his insolence and mischief. It was only slightly less humiliating than having his life saved by Potter senior, and his only comfort was that hopefully the boy was just as embarrassed about defending Snape as Snape was about being defended. 

Still, he knew that Morrigan was right when she said that having Harry Potter on his side might help sway the Wizengamot in his favor. And he grudgingly admitted to himself that Potter junior was slightly less of a prat than his father, although he would never, ever voice that opinion out loud to anyone--not even to Lupin, who would grin with insufferable Gryffindor smugness, and certainly not to Potter himself.

Potter finished testifying and left after giving his former teacher a nervous, awkward smile, as if sensing Snape's thoughts--or more likely, was just responding to the scowl on Snape's face. And then it was his turn to take the stand.

Morrigan questioned him briefly, attempting to prove Theodore's fitness as the Snape heir. Snape confirmed that Theodore did indeed have Snape blood, inherited from both of his biological parents. The Snape and Nott family tapestries both revealed that Theodore's great-great-great grandmother on the Nott side was a Snape, and further research by Selima had determined that there was also a very distant Snape ancestor in the Dietrich family. Lupin had joked that Aric would be horrified, but Snape doubted that he would really be surprised, since all the pureblood families were interbred to an almost incestuous degree--one of the reasons why Snape's father had chosen a foreign-born bride.

Snape also testified that Theodore's grades at Hogwarts had been excellent, and that he was currently apprenticed to a noted expert in Ancient Runes. 

"And Master Tremayne is pleased with Theodore's work?" Morrigan asked.

"Yes, very much so," Snape replied. "Master Tremayne is a very solitary man, and had not taken on an apprentice in many years. He reluctantly agreed to take Theodore on for a few months as a favor to me, but he was so impressed with Theodore's work that he agreed to extend the apprenticeship indefinitely."

"And your father, the previous Lord Snape, personally approved your choice of Theodore as heir?" Morrigan continued.

"He did," Snape said, although "approved" was probably a bit of a stretch. Severin had grudgingly accepted Theodore only because having an adopted heir with some Snape blood was better than having no heir at all. Still, it was close enough to the truth not to be an outright lie--at least by Slytherin standards.

"Is there any doubt in your mind that Theodore is a worthy heir to the Snape family?"

"None whatsoever," Snape replied in a firm voice.

"Thank you, Professor," Morrigan said, and stepped back to allow Delauney's lawyer his turn at questioning Snape.

"And just why did you have to adopt an heir, Professor Snape?" Bole asked in an unctuous voice, smiling in a way that Snape could only think of as "oily". 

"Because I have no children of my own," Snape replied, carefully keeping his voice level, although he directed a cold stare at Bole, causing the man to take a step backwards.

"Because you have a male lover!" Bole sneered. "The werewolf teacher, Remus Lupin."

"That's hardly a secret, Bole," Snape said in a condescending voice, the same one he used when pointing out the obvious to the most dimwitted of his students.

The lawyer flushed, looking disconcerted by the fact that his taunt had failed to discomfit Snape. "The purpose of having an heir is to continue the family line," Bole snarled. "And if your heir cannot or will not produce an heir of his own, then what was the point of adopting him in the first place?"

"Well, it's a little soon to expect Theodore to produce an heir, don't you think?" Snape countered in a casual tone of voice, his expression bland and indifferent, as if it were a matter of no consequence. "He has only just graduated from Hogwarts, after all."

"Don't play dumb, Snape!" Bole spat.

"I must object, Madam Bones!" Morrigan protested. "Is Mr. Bole interrogating my client or simply insulting him?"

"Please maintain a professional demeanor, Mr. Bole," Bones admonished sternly.

With a visible effort, Bole got his temper under control, although he flashed a sullen, accusing glare in Snape's direction. "I apologize, Madam Bones," he said stiffly. "I shall rephrase my statement." He continued with exaggerated courtesy, "Professor Snape, I find it most surprising that you seem to have forgotten the events that occurred at last year's Yule Ball. Was it not revealed that your son was...ah...shall we say, involved in a romantic relationship with a male classmate? A Mr. Blaise Zabini, if I am not mistaken?"

"Oh, that," Snape scoffed, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. "Some idiotic student thought to play a prank by spiking the punch with a home-brewed potion. Several of the students, Theodore included, exhibited irrational and uncharacteristic behavior. Rather embarrassing for them, of course, but the effects wore off quickly with no physical harm to the students, although their pride might have suffered some damage."

There were a few chuckles and gasps of surprise from the spectators in response to Snape's audacity, but they were quickly silenced by a sharp rap of Madam Bone's gavel. "Then you deny that your son is having an affair with Mr. Zabini?" Bole asked incredulously.

"I do not ask my son about his affairs," Snape replied, which was true enough. He had already known of Theodore's relationship with Blaise even before the Yule Ball, because Lupin had told him about it. Therefore, he had never had reason to ask Theodore if he was having an affair with Blaise. Deflecting the truth without actually telling a lie had by now become second nature to Snape, thanks to the many years he had spent working as Dumbledore's spy. Since Voldemort had been able to use Legilimency to detect lies, it had been much simpler to tell him a partial truth than to disguise an outright lie with Occlumency.

"And he does not discuss them with me," Snape continued as Bole fumed. "Did you discuss your affairs with your parents when you were his age?"

There were a few chuckles from the spectators, and Bones rapped her gavel again. "I am not the one on trial here, Professor!" Bole snapped. "My client--and this court--have a right to know whether your son is fit to inherit the Snape title!"

"You are making too much about this little incident at the Ball," Snape countered in a tone of condescending amusement. "Many young people...ah...'experiment' during their school days. It does not necessarily mean that they will not wed and produce children in the future." It didn't necessarily mean that they would, either, but Snape chose not to elaborate on that point.

"Then are you promising the court that Theodore will wed and father a child?" Bole asked skeptically. "Do you intend to arrange a marriage for him?"

Most of Snape's attention was focused on Bole, but out of the corner of his eye, he also kept watch on Sebastien Delauney, and he noticed an intense, avaricious gleam in the French wizard's eyes. Selima suspected that Delauney did not really expect to win the lawsuit, but rather, hoped that the Snapes would bribe him to drop it. However, judging by the look on his face, Delauney wanted more than a fat bribe--he wanted it all, the entire Snape estate. Snape wondered who Delauney's patron was, and whether he was aware of the extent of his pawn's ambitions.

But Bole was waiting for an answer, so Snape replied, showing no outward sign of the thoughts churning through his mind. "Not at the moment. I am merely saying that it is too soon to be worrying about Theodore having children. My own father did not even marry until he was about my age..." He allowed a hint of sarcasm to creep into his voice as he continued, "And the Ministry did not convene a hearing to ask when he was going to sire a child." 

He glanced over at the members of the Wizengamot and saw that a few of them had the grace to look a little sheepish, although most of them seemed unrepentant. "So by my calculations, Theodore has at least a couple more decades before he needs to be pressured into an arranged marriage. It isn't as if the Snape line is in immediate jeopardy of dying out. I am in good health, and intend to remain that way, and I have a young and healthy heir."

"Of course I would never wish any harm to befall you, Professor," Bole said with an utterly insincere smile. "But even a wizard as powerful as yourself cannot predict the future. Your own father unexpectedly fell ill and died, after all. One never knows when the need for another heir might become imminent."

Snape wondered if that was a threat, then decided that it was probably mostly legal posturing, at least on Bole's part. He wasn't the type to dirty his hands with blood; that was why he had become a lawyer instead of a Death Eater. But who knew how far Delauney would go to win the Snape title? For a young man who had grown up in poverty, a life of comfort and wealth might well be worth killing for. 

Delauney's unknown backers were also a factor; Hermione Granger thought that the recent murders and Delauney's lawsuit might be connected, and as much as he hated to admit it, she could be right. Snape certainly couldn't afford to dismiss the theory out of hand, and made a mental note to check on the security at Master Tremayne's house, where Theodore was staying.

"My father did not 'unexpectedly' fall ill," Snape told Bole in a cool voice. "Although my family kept it quiet, he had been ill for many months before his death, and during that time he took steps to ensure the succession--hence, the family reunion that resulted in my being reappointed as heir. You may rest assured that should I contract an incurable disease, I also will take steps to make sure that the Snape line continues. Not that I need to, of course. My son knows his duty, and I am sure that he will eventually provide the Snape family with an heir without any pressure from me."

Once again, he was stretching the truth a little, though not quite lying. He knew that his mother hoped that Theodore would adopt an heir someday, and when he grew older, she would probably set about looking for one in her usual practical and single-minded manner. Theodore seemed amenable to the idea--albeit one that was vague and far off in the future. Still, he took his duties as heir seriously, and if necessary, he would be willing to adopt an heir sooner than expected, providing that he could find one. Of course an adopted heir was not what Bole had in mind, but if the Wizengamot chose to assume that Snape meant that Theodore would father a biological child rather than adopt one, then he certainly wasn't going to correct that assumption.

"Should the future of the Snape family rest on such nebulous promises?" Bole asked rhetorically, looking unimpressed. "That your adopted heir--who is only distantly related to the Snapes by blood--might get over his 'experimentation' phase, as you call it, that he might marry, that he might sire a child years, perhaps decades from now? Not when there is an heir right here, with a stronger blood claim, who has pledged to do whatever is necessary to ensure the succession." He gestured at his client, who flashed a charming smile at the assembled Wizengamot, then modestly inclined his head.

"And who is to say that your client would be any more or less successful at siring a child than my chosen heir?" Snape retorted. "For all we know, he might be infertile."

"How dare you--" Delauney started to protest, flushing angrily.

"Unless you have an illegitimate child tucked away somewhere?" Snape asked sarcastically.

"I have no child, but I have pledged to seek out a wife and father an heir if the Wizengamot decides in my favor," Delauney said stiffly.

"Yes, I am sure you would have a much easier time finding a wife as the head of a wealthy pureblood family than as the grandson of a prostitute," Snape said dryly.

"Objection!" Bole shouted.

"Professor Snape," Bones said warningly.

"I beg your pardon, Madam Bones," Snape said, then turned back to Bole. "Perhaps my son's blood connection to the Snape family might be a little distant. But at least it can be proven beyond a doubt that he has Snape blood--which is more than I can say for your client."

"We'll see about that!" Bole snarled, but Snape could see a few members of the Wizengamot nodding thoughtfully. Bole continued to interrogate him for awhile longer, but Snape had the dubious benefit of having been interrogated by the Dark Lord himself on a regular basis, and he was more than able to hold his own in their verbal fencing match, and Bole finally gave up and allowed Snape to step down.

"I would like to call the Professor's adopted son Theodore to the stand at our next session," Bole said rather sullenly.

Snape hedged, "Theodore is in the middle of his apprenticeship right now, and his Master is very strict. He will not of approve of his pupil's education being interrupted." Snape recalled how he had declared that he would not allow his son to be humiliated in public by being questioned about his sexual preferences, but he was now acutely aware that there was little he could do to prevent it. Bole smirked, and Snape glowered at him, repressing the urge to inflict a Crucio spell or two on both the lawyer and his client.

"We are attempting to determine who is most fit to head the Snape family," Bole stated rather pompously. "Therefore, it is essential that I be allowed to question the Professor's heir, since he is next in line to inherit the title."

"Mr. Bole has a point, Professor Snape," Bones said. "I am well aware of Master Tremayne's reputation, but surely he can spare his apprentice for just one day, given the circumstances? It's not as if Theodore would be going off on a jaunt to Hogsmeade."

"Master Tremayne and his apprentice are conducting crucial research for the Ministry of Magic," Morrigan said smoothly. "It is absolutely imperative that they not be interrupted at this point."

"Is this related to the museum break-in?" Bones asked. Although the details of the theft had not been made public, as the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, she was well aware of the stolen medallion, and knew just how dangerous it could be in the wrong hands. 

"Yes, Madam Bones," Morrigan replied respectfully--and more or less truthfully. Tremayne and Theodore really were working hard to translate all the runes and books that had been found in the ruins, in hopes of finding more information about the medallion. What Morrigan left out was that the chances of them finding anything useful was rather slim, but still, no possible lead could be left unturned when a werewolf serial killer was on the loose.

Bones held a brief, whispered conference with Arthur Weasley, and it seemed that he was able to persuade her, at least partially, because Bones announced, "The trial shall be postponed for two weeks in order to give Master Tremayne and Mr. Snape time to finish their research." Bole started to protest, and Bones rapped her gavel to cut him off, then continued, "However, Theodore Snape must present himself in court when the trial resumes, regardless of whether or not his work is finished. Does that satisfy you, Mr. Bole, Ms. De Lacy?"

It did not, but both lawyers knew that the question was rhetorical, so they murmured reluctant assent, and court was adjourned.

As he prepared to leave, Snape noticed that the members of the Wizengamot were quietly debating and arguing with each other, which was interesting. He couldn't quite make out their words, but it seemed that they were much more divided than they had been at the previous session, when the majority had seemed to favor Delauney.

Snape mentioned this to Morrigan when they all gathered together back at the Manor. "Yes, I noticed that, too," she agreed. "It seems that your mother's efforts are bearing fruit."

Selima smiled, looking smug as a cat with a bowl of cream. "I've just given them something other than Weasley and yourself to worry about, Severus."

"Perhaps if they continue to be distracted, Theodore won't have to testify, after all?" Lupin asked hopefully.

Morrigan shook her head. "Not unless we can come up with a good reason for the Wizengamot to dismiss the case. Still, we've won a reprieve of two weeks. Perhaps we can dig up some dirt on Delauney during that time, and force him to drop his lawsuit."

"It would have to be something truly scandalous," Selima said, frowning slightly. "Considering that the Wizengamot is seriously considering his claim even though he's the grandson of a whore. But yes, continue your research, Ms. De Lacy. And perhaps you could begin making discreet inquiries as to whether a bribe will make him go away."

"He's greedy," Snape said. "I saw it in his eyes; he isn't just playing a role anymore. Regardless of whether or not that was his true intention to begin with, he's now determined to win the case and take the estate from us."

"But his case is shaky, and if he's losing support among the Wizengamot, he may settle for monetary compensation rather than walk away with nothing at all," Selima pointed out. "As little as I like the thought of paying out Snape gold to that usurper, it would be worth the expense to spare Theodore from having to testify." When Lupin smiled at her, she hastily added, "And to prevent the Snape family's reputation from being damaged, of course."

"Of course," Lupin said agreeably, still grinning as Selima gave him a sour look.

"Very well, I'll do my best," Morrigan promised.

Not long after she left, a small, scruffy-looking owl arrived to drop off a letter for Snape. He opened it and said, "Well, it looks as if I'll be doing some research, too. My contact came through, and has provided the locations of three sanatoriums that are rumored to accept werewolves as 'patients': one in Germany, one in Bulgaria, and one in Romania."

"That sounds promising," Lupin said. "Shall I go with you as a translator? I speak fluent German, though I don't speak Bulgarian or Romanian, but Viktor Krum and Charlie Weasley might be able to help us."

Snape shook his head. "I haven't your skill with languages, Lupin, but I can speak a smattering of each, and besides, since these places cater to customers from all over the world, the staff should be able to speak English. And...we are meddling in things that are normally kept hidden, which could be dangerous. I think it would be best if I went alone."

"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear, Severus," Lupin said, in that deceptively mild and pleasant voice he used when he was being particularly stubborn. "I phrased my words as a question to be polite, but I am not giving you a choice. If the situation is dangerous for me, then it is also dangerous for you, and I will not allow you to walk into danger alone."

"I can take care of myself," Snape protested, although he was aware that he was fighting a losing battle.

"So can I," Lupin retorted. "My specialty is Defense Against the Dark Arts, remember?"

"Of course, Lupin, but it really isn't necessary for you to--"

"Actually," Selima interrupted, "I would prefer it if Professor Lupin accompanied you, Severus. No matter how capable you are, I don't like the idea of you walking into unfamiliar and possibly hostile territory alone. Who knows what these people might do if they suspect you are trying to expose their secrets?"

"But Mother--" Snape protested weakly. _I can't believe that my mother and the werewolf are ganging up on me!_ he groaned silently.

"Then it's settled," Lupin said sweetly. "Besides, if your cover story is that you are searching for a place to put an unwanted werewolf relative, I can pose as the werewolf, which will help make your cover more convincing."

"Don't I have any say in the matter?" Snape grumbled.

"None whatsoever," Lupin replied cheerfully.

*** 

Meanwhile, Sebastien Delauney had arranged to meet his mysterious patron in the room he had rented at the Leaky Cauldron. Originally, he had been pleased enough with their arrangement; he had been paid a thousand Galleons to pose as the Snape heir, with the promise of more to be paid after the trial, even if he lost. And if he won, the benefits were obvious--a title, and the wealth and respectability that had eluded him for his entire life. It had seemed like a plan with no drawbacks; even in a worst-case scenario, he would return to France a good deal wealthier than when he had left it.

But that brief taste of life as a noble, as one of the pureblood elite, was intoxicating and addictive. His blood was as good as any of theirs, after all--his mother was from a wealthy and respected French pureblood family, and his unknown British grandfather had to be a pureblood as well, since the brothel where Philomela had worked had catered solely to purebloods. Half-bloods, no matter how wealthy, had not been welcome, and a Muggle-born had certainly never been allowed to enter the threshold of that elite establishment. For all Sebastien knew, his grandfather might really be the old Snape Lord, although Philomela had never been sure exactly who had fathered her child. 

Conveniently enough, though, Stefan Snape had left his cloak pin behind in Philomela's room--forgotten after an assignation, and he had fallen ill shortly thereafter, and so never had a chance to retrieve it. Years later, that pin had allowed Bole to display it in court as "proof" that Lord Snape had gifted his mistress with the family crest, an implicit acknowledgment that the child was his. 

Philomela had also possessed a small locket, a gift from her other paramour, Pembroke Parkinson, but Sebastien kept that piece of information to himself, since he was claiming to be a Snape, not a Parkinson. Even after she had sold the rest of her jewelry, his grandmother had held onto those small tokens as a matter of pride, as proof that even though she had been forced into prostitution, her son's blood was still pure. That part of his testimony, at least, had been true.

So why should he return to his life of squalor in France, working to satisfy the base desires of men and women whose blood was no better than his? His blood was as pure as theirs, so why shouldn't he be equal to them in rank as well? And even if his grandfather wasn't Stefan Snape, then he had probably been a Black or a Malfoy or a Parkinson, and the pureblood families were so interbred that there was probably a Snape somewhere in all of their family trees. Sebastien probably had at least as much Snape blood as the Professor's adopted heir.

He was no longer satisfied with the gold that his patron had promised; he wanted to become the Snape Lord and have his revenge on everyone who had called his grandmother a whore and sneered at his questionable pedigree. He wanted revenge on his mother's parents who had disowned her, consigning their daughter to an early death and their grandson to a life of poverty when he should have led a life of comfort and ease.

But Sebastien's patron didn't care about his wishes, only about humiliating the Snapes. So Sebastien thought that perhaps he would try to gain a little leverage over his nameless employer. To that end, he had purchased a pair of enchanted spectacles with--ironically enough--some of the gold his patron had given him. They would allow him to see through any magical disguises, which meant that he could discover his patron's identity. Sebastien couldn't afford a permanently enchanted item, so the spell would work for only one viewing, but he figured that once would be enough.

There was a knock at the door--one short rap followed by a pause, then two more, their agreed-upon signal. "Come in," Sebastien called, donning the spectacles as he made a show of shuffling through some court documents.

His patron normally appeared as a very nondescript man: neither young nor old, neither short nor tall, neither fat nor thin, with hair a very dull and ordinary shade of brown, and features so unremarkable that one's gaze seemed to slip over them without really noticing. But with the aid of the spectacles, Sebastien noticed that his employer was a handsome man with dark hair and eyes, much younger and much more striking than the glamor that he wore to disguise himself.

Sebastien did not recognize the face, but he carefully tried to memorize it without being obvious about it. He smiled distractedly and blinked owlishly, as if he could not see the man clearly through the spectacles.

"I didn't know that you wore glasses, Sebastien," his patron said, sounding amused, so it seemed that he didn't suspect anything.

"Only for reading," Sebastien said sheepishly as he casually slipped the spectacles off his face and tucked them into his pocket. "I must admit, I am a little vain, so I don't normally wear them in public."

His patron chuckled, "Ah, but glasses are hardly unfashionable here in England, since our beloved savior wears them." Despite his pleasant smile, the man's voice sharpened slightly. "Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the hero who defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

Sebastien shrugged indifferently, although he made a mental note that his patron had no love for the hero boy wizard. "Oh yes, I've heard of him, although the war had little impact on my country."

"Only because the Dark Lord was vanquished before he could expand the war to include your country," his patron said, a little sullenly. 

"Then I suppose I should be grateful to this Boy Who Lived," Sebastien said lightly as his patron scowled. "But getting back to business, I am a little worried about how the trial is going. You told me that most of the Wizengamot hates Snape, but they seem to be leaning in his favor."

His patron's scowl deepened. "Someone has been stirring up trouble at the Ministry, turning Arthur Weasley's opponents against each other. Snape is probably behind it, or more likely, his mother. My father always said she was a shrewd bitch, and the real reason why Severin Snape rose as high as he did in the Ministry. And that De Lacy woman is a sly character as well. But whatever the reason, the senior members of the Ministry and the Wizengamot are too busy fighting each other at the moment to concentrate properly on the trial."

"Then how can we mend the situation?" Sebastien asked. "Are there certain officials we could bribe, or perhaps--?"

"We?" his patron interrupted sharply. "Just remember that you are not the Snape Lord yet, Delauney, and that you work for me. It is my gold that is being paid out, and I shall decide if and when a bribe is necessary."

"I beg your pardon if I overstepped my bounds," Sebastien said humbly, bowing his head to hide the sudden flash of resentment in his eyes. "I intended no offense; I am just worried that the trial is not going according to plan."

His employer appeared to be pacified by his show of humility, because he relaxed enough to smile slightly and say, "Relax, Delauney. I promised that you would be paid regardless of the outcome of the trial."

"Of course, and I appreciate your generosity," Sebastien said smoothly, raising his head to smile charmingly back at his patron, composure restored. "But I must admit, I would like to win, if possible. Who wouldn't want to be a Lord, after all? And it would be most useful to you to have a Lord who is your devoted servant."

"And would you be, Sebastien?" his patron asked, still smiling, but his voice took on a slight edge of bitterness and suspicion. "Devoted, that is. Gratitude, in my experience, is often short-lived. If you became Lord, perhaps you might think that you no longer need my support."

"Not at all, sir," Delauney protested earnestly. "I could never forget the debt I owe to the one who elevated me to such high status! Besides, even if I do win the trial and receive the Snape estate, I will still need a strong ally. I know that even if they vote against Snape, many of the purebloods will look down on me because of my father's illegitimate birth."

"That is true," his patron conceded. "If we win the trial, that is all well and good, but its main purpose is to distract and inconvenience Snape. Continue to play your role as I have instructed, and do not deviate from the script."

"As you command, sir," Delauney said meekly, bowing his head.

His good humor restored, Delauney's employer smiled in a patronizing manner and handed him a small but heavy pouch of coins, saying, "A bonus for your good work."

"Thank you, sir," Delauney said, accepting the pouch with a show of gratitude, and his patron left.

Delauney had only his employer's face and no name to go with it, but he was not discouraged. Someone so wealthy likely belonged to a family of high rank, so he would purchase back issues of the Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly, and check the pictures on the society pages. There was a good chance that such a handsome and wealthy young man had been photographed attending some exclusive soiree or concert or play. Or perhaps he was related to a Death Eater, and that was why he was so bent on taking revenge against Snape--in which case it was very likely that there would be a picture of him somewhere in the articles covering the Death Eater trials. 

The thought of blackmailing a possible Death Eater gave Delauney some pause, but then he reassured himself that if his patron was a Death Eater, he would have been killed or sent to Azkaban with the rest of them. Besides, the man he had seen through the enchanted spectacles looked young, in his early twenties, and most of the Death Eaters had been in their thirties or older, having been recruited during the first war, when Delauney's patron was still a toddler. 

And from the gossip Delauney had heard, the families of the Death Eaters had been vocal in repudiating their relatives' crimes, and were trying very hard not to attract undue attention to themselves--and the murder of the rival Snape heir would certainly attract a great deal of attention.

So it was probably safe enough to put a little pressure on his employer if he emphasized what a useful ally he could be with the Snape family's name and wealth at his disposal. He would act humble and deferential, and eager to remain in his patron's good graces; after all, they both needed each other. Delauney, with his uncertain birth, needed the backing of the old pureblood families to truly be accepted into society even if he won the lawsuit, and if his patron's family was tainted by association with the Death Eaters, then they also needed allies. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Of course there was some risk involved, but an opportunity like this, the chance to claim what Delauney thought of as his proper birthright, might never come again. Surely it was worth a few risks to gain the power and wealth he had always craved. He chuckled to himself as he rose to his feet and pocketed the pouch of coins that his patron had given him. How wonderfully ironic, that he would use his master's own gold to purchase the materials that would allow Delauney to blackmail him!

*** 

Halloween fell on the weekend after the trial. It was usually a festive time of year in the wizarding world, but the mood was rather subdued this year, due to the unsolved murders and the uncertainty of the Minister's future. Still, the normal celebrations were being planned, and the students, who were somewhat sheltered from the outside world at Hogwarts castle, were eagerly looking forward to their scheduled trip to Hogsmeade.

"Is it safe?" Tsubasa asked during a staff meeting, fingering the hilts of his swords restlessly, an action that seemed to make some of the other teachers a bit nervous.

"I think so," McGonagall replied. "All of the murders have taken place at night, not during the day, and none of them happened near Hogsmeade or the school. It doesn't seem as though the students are being targeted."

"But it seems as though werewolves are somehow involved, either as perpetrator or targets, or perhaps both," Sprout said in a concerned voice. "And we have two werewolf teachers at this school, and a third werewolf who is the brother of a student and the son of two of the victims."

"We shall take all due precautions," Dumbledore assured her. "The students shall be organized into small groups that will be under the supervision of at least one teacher at all times."

Several of the teachers sighed regretfully. The Hogsmeade trips were normally a holiday for the teachers as well as the students, a chance to relax and socialize and drink something a bit stronger than butterbeer. Still, they understood the necessity of protecting the students, and no one objected to the Headmaster's plan.

"I'm afraid that you'll have to count Severus and myself out, Albus," Lupin said with a smile. "We've made plans to travel and take a little holiday this weekend."

"Of course, Remus," Dumbledore said cheerfully, winking at Lupin.

Stern McGonagall gave Snape a sympathetic look. "I know that recent events have been stressful for you, Severus; a holiday will do you good. The rest of us can manage fine without you."

*** 

"A holiday?" Snape asked sarcastically, once he and Lupin were alone in their quarters. "Touring the illicit sanatoriums of Europe is not exactly what I'd call a pleasant holiday jaunt, Lupin."

"Yes, but I thought you wanted to be discreet, so we needed to come up with a cover story," Lupin replied, unperturbed. "Besides, perhaps we can manage to squeeze in a little sightseeing while we're there. I traveled to Germany on business once for one of my translation jobs, and I know of a wonderful restaurant in Berlin. And I'm sure that Charlie would be happy to give us a tour of the Dragon Reservation in Romania."

"Yes, spending time around ferocious man-eating beasts is one of my favorite pastimes," Snape said sourly. "Ranking only slightly above spending time around anyone from the Weasley family."

Lupin just laughed and leaned over to kiss Snape, a light peck on the lips. "I know that the situation is serious, but still, I must confess that I'm looking forward to going off on a trip alone with you."

Snape snorted derisively, but was secretly a little flattered. "You won't miss spending Halloween shepherding the little brats around Hogsmeade?"

"I'll manage to survive somehow," Lupin said with a grin. "What about you?"

"Spending Halloween in a sanatorium filled with madmen and werewolves actually seems far more preferable to spending it trapped in a castle with a bunch of overexcited children on a sugar high."

"I was hoping that we could limit the sanatorium investigation to the daylight hours," Lupin replied. "I thought that perhaps we could have a..." He smiled slyly. "...private celebration on Halloween night."

"That can be arranged," Snape purred in a silky voice, returning Lupin's smile. "Perhaps we could play...trick or treat?"

"I know exactly what treat I want," Lupin growled, eyeing Snape hungrily.

"You'll have to wait till Halloween," Snape teased, then cried out, "Lupin, wait--oof!" as he was pounced on and knocked down onto the bed by a very enthusiastic werewolf. "I think you've put on weight," he grumbled.

"All the more of me to love," Lupin cooed into his ear.

"Idiot werewolf," Snape grumbled, but then Lupin began nibbling on his earlobe, and his voice trailed off into a breathy sigh. "Ah..."

"I love you, too, Severus," Lupin said, a combination of amusement, tenderness, and lust mingling on his face in an oddly compelling and intoxicating manner. Snape was momentarily silenced, and Lupin kissed him firmly, cutting off any further complaints or protests.

*** 

So Snape and Lupin started off their holiday on a cheerful note, despite the circumstances that had led to it. They left Hogwarts on Friday night and started off their trip in Germany, renting a room at an upscale wizarding inn in Berlin.

"Much posher accommodations than I'm used to," Lupin admitted, glancing around the room with pleasure. "Not that I'm complaining. How did you find this place?"

"I attended a Potions conference in Berlin several years ago," Snape replied. "One of my German colleagues recommended this inn to me back then."

"I didn't know that you'd been to Germany before," Lupin said, a quizzical little smile lifting one corner of his mouth. "How odd, to think that there are things I still don't know about you, after all these years."

Snape shrugged and said, "The subject never came up before." Then he frowned at Lupin, who looked as though he didn't know whether to be intrigued or hurt by the admission that there were things he didn't know about his lover. "I wasn't trying to hide it," he said defensively. 

"I know that, Severus," Lupin said, his smile growing more sincere, his good humor restored.

Snape smiled back at him, trying not to look too obviously relieved. "Well, in the interests of full disclosure," he said lightly, "perhaps I should mention that I've also been to America once--another Potions conference; France a couple of times; Japan several times, of course, while working on the Wolfsbane Potion; and I traveled to Egypt with Uncle Ali once when I was a child--"

"My, I had no idea that you were such an experienced traveler," Lupin laughed, leaning in to kiss Snape and cut off the catalogue of countries. "I'm a little envious."

"You shouldn't be," Snape replied. "They were all business or family trips, nothing special. If you really want to, we can go somewhere together for summer vacation."

"That sounds nice," Lupin murmured, winding his arms around Snape's neck. "But to be honest, Severus, what makes me most happy is just to be with you. It doesn't matter whether we're at Hogwarts or Snape Manor or some faraway tropical island."

Snape briefly considered the faraway tropical island option, then decided that it was more appealing in fantasy than reality; with his pale skin, he'd probably just end up sunburned and miserable. "How lucky for me that you're so easily satisfied, then," he said, wrapping his arms around Lupin.

"Are you calling me a cheap date, Severus?" Lupin joked.

"I'll have you know, this room was quite expensive," Snape retorted indignantly.

"Then we should make full use of it and get our money's worth," Lupin said coyly as he began moving backwards, pulling Snape along with him towards the bed. "Especially that nice big bed over there."

"For once, we're in complete agreement, Remus," Snape said with a grin, and they tumbled down onto the bed together in a tangle of limbs.

*** 

They made love all night, then slept in late the next morning and ordered room service, enjoying a leisurely breakfast in bed. "Well, time for business," Snape said briskly when the last of the food was gone, and Lupin sighed regretfully, then pushed aside the empty breakfast plates.

They got dressed in the outfits that Snape had picked for their little charade: formal dress robes (black, of course) for Snape, as befit a man with enough wealth to install an unwanted relative in an expensive sanatorium for the rest of his life; and for Lupin, a set of robes that were of good quality but slightly faded and out of fashion, the kind of hand-me-downs that might be given to a poor relation of a wealthy family. 

Snape also cast a small glamor to disguise his features on the off-chance that his notoriety might have reached far enough into Germany for the sanatorium staff to recognize him. "They might detect the charm," he said, "but they won't find it suspicious. It's common for their clients to use aliases and disguises to protect their identities."

Lupin's gray-streaked hair was already the correct shade for a werewolf, and Snape decided that he didn't need a glamor, only a few minor cosmetic changes. He gave Lupin a potion to drink that had no ill effects, but changed his skin to an unhealthy sallow shade, and he smudged a bit of kohl beneath Lupin's eyes to give him a weary, haggard look. The robes that Snape had picked out for Lupin were a couple of sizes too big, hanging loosely on his frame, making him look thinner than he really was, and adding to the overall image of ill health.

"Wow, I look horrible," Lupin said, admiring his reflection in the mirror. "You did a great job, Severus."

Snape smirked, preening slightly. "I was a spy for nearly two decades, after all," he said in a superior tone of voice. "Of course, most of the time I was playing myself, with varying loyalties, but occasionally I had to disguise myself to find out information." He frowned, looking over Lupin with a critical eye. "However, body language is just as important as appearance. You're trying to look cowed and frightened; keep your head down and hunch your shoulders a bit. And try not to look so bloody cheerful."

Lupin cringed in an exaggerated manner. "Yes, sir; whatever you say, sir."

Snape rolled his eyes. "We'll be lost if we have to rely on your acting skills, Lupin. Just try to keep your head down and let me do the talking."

"Yes, sir; whatever you say, sir."

"Oh, knock it off, Lupin! And remember that your name is John Smith."

"Very original."

"I told you, the staff expects us to use aliases. And you're not acting very cowed."

"Sorry, Sev...er, I mean, Mr. Smith."

Snape heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes again.

*** 

However, Lupin's mischievous mood quickly vanished when they arrived at the sanatorium. Much to his surprise, the place appeared to be no different from a legitimate hospital--at least on the surface. He had been expecting something dark and gloomy, like the dungeons of Hogwarts. Instead, the sanatorium was clean and well-lit, the walls painted in soothing pastel colors.

The staff consisted of brisk, efficient mediwizards and witches; cheerful, smiling nurses; and burly male attendants who presumably provided any needed muscle, but they somehow managed to project an aura that was more reassuring than threatening. The Director of the sanatorium was a plump, well-dressed middle-aged wizard who looked more like a prosperous businessman than the Dark Wizard that Lupin had expected.

However, as the Director took them on a tour of the sanatorium, Lupin began to notice hints that things here were not all sweetness and light. The patients' rooms were comfortably, even luxuriously appointed, but the doors could all be locked and barred from the outside, and each door was set with a panel of enchanted one-way glass that allowed the mediwizards to view the patients, but not the other way around. Some of the rooms contained windows that let sunlight in, but the Director assured Severus that the windows did not open and were made of unbreakable glass.

The Director allowed them to look in on the patients, and Lupin saw that they appeared to be clean and well-fed, and showed no signs of physical abuse. One woman sat quietly at a desk, reading a book. A man about Lupin's age sat on his bed, hugging a teddy bear to his chest as he rocked back and forth, crooning tunelessly to himself. A few others lay on their beds, either sleeping or staring blankly up at the ceiling. Except for the sleeping ones, they all had the vacant-eyed look of the drugged.

It turned Lupin's stomach, and he kept his head down, letting his hair fall forward across his face to hide his look of disgust; Severus merely nodded approvingly. Lupin appreciated his lover's acting abilities, because he knew that he'd never be able to pull off such an act successfully. Fortunately, even if the Director noticed Lupin's revulsion, it probably wouldn't seem out of character for a werewolf who was being committed to a sanatorium against his will.

"He is a werewolf, but he is still family," Severus told the Director. "We want the very best of care for him."

"Of course," the Director agreed with a smile. 

"I assume that you have experience in dealing with lycanthropy?" Severus asked. "Do you have any werewolves in residence at the moment?"

"Yes, we do," the Director replied with no sign of hesitation. "As a matter of fact, we have three such patients at the moment. Here is one of them." He led them to another door and allowed them to peer through the window to observe another drugged-looking man lying on a bed. "He went feral before his family had him captured and brought here," the Director explained. "But with the proper medication, he is harmless to himself and the staff. And of course, every month all our werewolf patients receive the Wolfsbane Potion, which is made here on the premises by a licensed potion-brewer. Patients are confined to their rooms for the night of the full moon, but they are not caged or chained. It only unduly stresses the patients, and they are quite docile under the influence of the Wolfsbane. If a patient is inclined to be...ah...nervous during the waxing moon, a mild sedative is added to the potion. Unlike certain other facilities, we treat our werewolf patients with utmost gentleness and care."

"So it seems," Severus replied with another approving nod. "If it is permitted, may I observe the other two werewolves in your care?"

"You already saw one--the gentleman with the teddy bear," the Director said. "His parents tried an experimental potion on him before the Wolfsbane Potion was invented, and unfortunately, it left him feeble-minded. However, our third patient came to us in much better condition, and she is doing quite well. Allow me to introduce you. Perhaps that will set your mind--" He smiled reassuringly at Lupin. "--and your cousin's mind at ease." 

The Director led them up a flight of stairs and down a corridor to a spacious room. A few patients were sitting at a large table, quietly drawing and painting with crayons and watercolors. At a smaller table, two men were playing checkers; at another, a woman was working on a jigsaw puzzle. There were also a comfortable-looking sofa and a few armchairs scattered across the room where other patients were leafing through books and magazines--looking more at the pictures than the words, Lupin noticed, and one woman was knitting what appeared to be a pink doily with plastic blunt-tipped needles. A couple of the burly attendants stood watch while two nurses circulated around the room, stopping here and there to praise the artists' work, offer encouragement to the checker players, and compliment the knitter on her lovely doily.

"This is our community room," the Director said proudly. "Nonviolent patients are allowed to relax and socialize here--always under staff supervision, of course."

"Of course," Snape echoed. "I must admit, this is a far more, ah, enlightened situation than I expected to find."

"We pride ourselves on keeping our patients happy as well as safe," the Director replied. He stopped by the table where the patients were drawing and painting, and said, "This is Elsie," smiling indulgently at a young woman who was painting a field of flowers. "As you can see, she is quite the artist." In German, he said, "Elsie, this is Mr. Smith and his cousin John. John is a werewolf like you, and he might come to live here with us."

Elsie looked up and smiled at them. She was young, perhaps twenty, more of a girl than a woman, with pale blonde hair and dreamy-looking, slightly glazed blue eyes. "Hello, John," she said in German. "Hello, Mr. Smith."

"Good day, Miss," Severus replied. "Are you happy here? Well-treated?"

The Director translated his questions for Elsie, and also translated the girl's reply, that she was happy and everyone at the sanatorium was very nice to her. Since Lupin could speak German, he knew that the Director had translated her words accurately, but even if he hadn't been able to understand the language, Elsie's smile and relaxed demeanor made it obvious that she wasn't frightened or unhappy.

Lupin hesitated, then said timidly, "I can speak a little German," hoping that he wasn't breaking his cover.

"Good," the Director said heartily, not seeming at all suspicious. "Then you can have a nice chat with Elsie while I speak with your cousin." He and Severus moved a short distance away, discussing treatments and prices, while Lupin pulled up a chair next to Elsie.

"Are you really going to live here?" she asked hopefully. "It would be nice to have a friend who is also a werewolf. There are two other werewolves here, but you can't really talk to them, because they're...well...not right in the head."

"Are you really happy here, Elsie?" Lupin whispered, so that the Director would not overhear him. "You don't want to go home?"

She shook her head vigorously. "No! I like it here. Here, everyone is nice to me and nobody calls me a monster."

"People at home called you a monster?" Lupin asked.

Elsie nodded, her eyes filling with tears. "Father said it would be better if I had never been born. Mother tried to be kind, but...I could see in her eyes that she was afraid of me. She would never touch me or hug me like she did my brother and sister."

"I'm sorry," Lupin said softly, feeling guilty for upsetting her, but also taken aback by her statement that she liked living at the sanatorium. He had never imagined that anyone would voluntarily allow themselves to be locked up in what was essentially a prison, albeit a rather luxurious one.

He glanced over at the other patients who shared their table, but they were engrossed in their drawing, and didn't seem to be paying any attention to the conversation. Still, just to be on the safe side, Lupin lowered his voice to a whisper that only a werewolf could hear, and said, "There are places where a werewolf can live free, you know. In Britain, werewolves are equal to humans under the law." Of course, that law might well be changed if Arthur lost his job, but Lupin decided not to mention that little complication right now.

"Really?" Elsie asked skeptically. "Then why did your cousin bring you here?"

"My parents recently died, and my uncle, the new head of our family, would prefer that I remain out of sight so that I do not disgrace the family honor," Lupin replied, giving the cover story that Severus had invented. "My, er, cousin is humoring his father, but he is fond of me, and he won't force me to stay here against my will."

"But then what will you do, if your family doesn't want you?" Elsie asked.

"I can sever ties to my clan and take a new name," Lupin replied. "I would have to earn a living and support myself, but there is a pack of free werewolves living in London that will help and befriend any werewolf who has no family of his own. They would help you, too, Elsie." 

"Me?" Elsie gasped, her eyes going wide with shock.

"Yes," Lupin said. "I will help you, if you wish to escape." Severus probably wouldn't be too happy that he'd promised to help a patient escape from the sanatorium, but he couldn't just leave her here.

"Oh no, no, no!" Elsie exclaimed, shaking her head again. "I don't want to leave! I like it here!"

"But...don't you want to be free?" Lupin asked, puzzled and distressed by her resistance.

Elsie smiled sadly at him. "Even if werewolves are supposed to be equal in Britain, I bet people still hate and fear them, like your uncle."

Lupin nodded reluctantly. "But not everyone is like that. My parents loved me and did their best to protect me, and I have friends who don't care that I'm a werewolf."

"I'm not brave like you, John," Elsie said quietly. "I'm scared of being on my own, and I'm tired of having people look at me like I'm a monster. Here, no one is afraid of me. The nurses and mediwizards are kind to me. Sometimes even the Director will stop by, like today, and tell me how pretty my paintings are. I don't want to leave."

Lupin was about to speak, but fell silent when Severus and the Director returned. "And how are we doing?" the Director asked cheerfully.

"Elsie was telling me how happy she is here," Lupin replied honestly.

"I am sure that you will like it here, too, if you decide to stay with us," the Director said pleasantly.

Lupin gave him a forced smile in return, but the man didn't seem to take it amiss. Elsie aside, few patients entered a sanatorium willingly, and a little initial reluctance was probably normal, even expected.

"I shall have to talk it over with my family," Severus said smoothly. "I was very impressed with the facilities, although I suspect my father might balk at the price."

"As you have seen, we spare no expense in seeing to our patients' comfort and safety," the Director replied with equal smoothness; Lupin almost expected to see oil start oozing out of his pores. "Their families can rest assured that their loved ones are being well cared for."

"I shall do my best to persuade my father," Severus said. "Thank you for taking the time to meet with us." He discreetly handed the Director a small pouch of coins; it seemed to be an expected bribe or gratuity, because the man just smiled and pocketed it without comment.

"Not at all, Mr. Smith. It was my pleasure."

The Director shook hands with Severus, and even offered his hand to Lupin, who shook it reluctantly, then finally they were able to leave and Apparate back to their room at the inn.

"I am so glad to be out of that place!" Lupin exclaimed with a sigh of relief.

"Conditions there are much better than any other sanatorium I've ever heard of," Snape said with a shrug. "And the accommodations are far more luxurious than you would find even in a legitimate hospital like St. Mungo's. But a gilded cage is still a cage, I suppose."

"He bragged about how happy his patients were," Lupin said angrily. "Drugged into a stupor is more like it!"

"Most of the patients are given a special potion made of lotus root and poppy juice that keeps them placid and content," Snape agreed. "It's highly addictive, but since the patients are fed regular doses and aren't likely to ever leave the sanatorium, there's no danger of them suffering from withdrawal."

"I offered to help Elsie escape," Lupin said abruptly.

His lover stared at him blankly, his words taking a few moments to sink in. Then Severus exclaimed in dismay, "Lupin! I know you feel sorry for the girl, but do you have any idea how difficult--not to mention dangerous--it would be to try to break a patient out of that place?! The security measures there--"

"Don't worry, Sev," Lupin interrupted with a bleak smile. "Elsie refused my offer. Her own family treated her with such fear and contempt that the sanatorium seems like a safe haven in comparison. She says that everyone there is kind to her, and they don't treat her like a monster. I tried to convince her that she could live freely and make other friends if she escaped, but she's afraid of the outside world."

"Maybe she's right to be," Severus said dryly. "Look how quickly the old fears and prejudices have returned in Britain." Lupin sighed unhappily, and Severus said in an uncharacteristically gentle voice, "I'm sorry, Remus. I know how you must feel, but at least the girl...Elsie...is safe and happy."

Lupin repressed the urge to retort that Severus couldn't know how he felt, not being a werewolf himself. That wasn't fair; Severus had certainly endured more than his fair share of prejudice, and he had, in a sense, been held captive by his bond to Voldemort for nearly two decades.

Severus placed a hand on his shoulder, and Lupin relaxed, drawing comfort from his mate's touch. "Thank you, Severus," Lupin said, laying his hand over Severus's and giving him a shaky but sincere smile. "I know that some people value security over freedom." In a way, he had not been much different from Elsie as a student at Hogwarts, Lupin reminded himself guiltily. He had valued the security of the Marauders' friendship, and had been afraid to break away from the group, even when his conscience was troubled by some of their more malicious pranks. "But still," Lupin sighed, "it all seems so sad, somehow. I wish there were something more I could do."

"Well, we could report the sanatorium to the authorities," Severus replied. "But I suspect that they're already bribing someone in the German Ministry. And even if we did manage to shut the place down, the patients would probably just be transferred to other government or private institutions that are far less comfortable."

"No, you're right," Lupin admitted. "It would be wrong to disrupt Elsie's and the patients' lives unless we can make sure that they'll be better off than they were before. But that doesn't mean I have to be happy about it."

"Perhaps it would be better if I went to the other two sanatoriums alone," Severus said, frowning at Lupin in concern.

"No!" Lupin protested firmly, shaking off his melancholy. "I came along to protect you, and that's what I intend to do. What would I tell your mother if I let you get hurt because I was sitting around feeling sorry for myself?"

"You are being melodramatic, Lupin," Snape said, looking relieved and amused. "The danger is minimal, and I am perfectly capable of defending myself."

"Of course, dear, but please humor me," Lupin said placatingly. Severus rolled his eyes, but didn't argue further, and Lupin gave him a kiss as a reward. "By the way," Lupin asked, belatedly remembering the purpose of their trip, "did you find out anything useful?"

"Not unless by 'useful,' you mean that we've eliminated one location as the source of our rogue werewolf," Severus replied, grimacing. "While you were planning your little prison break, I questioned the Director about their security arrangements and whether a patient had ever escaped. He assured me, most emphatically, that no one had ever escaped from the sanatorium, and in fact, none of his patients want to leave. I also questioned him about prior werewolf patients, and he says that they haven't had any others for the past several years. Not that I would expect him to tell me the truth if he had lost a patient, but I didn't sense any hint of prevarication."

"Well, one down, two to go," Lupin sighed.

"Ready to go to Bulgaria?" Severus asked.

"Not really, but let's get it over with."

*** 

The Bulgarian sanatorium was much more like what Lupin had imagined, down to the dank stone walls, encrusted with patches of moss here and there, and the rooms that made no pretense of being cells. Each cell was furnished with a cot and not much else. The staff informed them that more amenities could be purchased for an additional fee, but Lupin got the impression that most of their clients didn't bother. All they wanted was for their inconvenient relatives to be locked up out of sight, and they didn't much care what happened to them afterwards, although they must have had some faint sliver of conscience or they would simply have killed off those relatives instead of paying to have them locked up.

Personally, Lupin would rather be dead than spend the rest of his life as a prisoner, and he felt himself tremble with anger. He kept his head down and his face hidden, so the staff mistook his anger for fear, and from the corner of his eye, he saw them smirk maliciously, obviously savoring his imagined terror. And he was only a visitor, a prospective patient; Merlin only knew what they did to the poor wretches in their care. Lupin had to clench his fists, his fingernails biting painfully into his palms, to stop himself from physically attacking the sanatorium staff and wiping those smirks off their faces.

Severus must have noticed, because he gave Lupin a quelling look, then asked the Bulgarian Director about the treatment program for werewolves. Extra security measures were taken with werewolf patients, he was assured, and they were chained and caged during the full moon.

"Is that necessary, with the Wolfsbane Potion?" Severus asked calmly.

"The Wolfsbane Potion costs extra," the Director told him. "It's not worth the expense to most of our clients, especially since werewolves heal their wounds so quickly. Any damage they inflict on themselves during the full moon is usually gone by the next morning. But of course the potion can be provided if you are willing to pay the cost."

Lupin's nails bit deeper into his flesh, and he saw a brief flash of anger in Severus's black eyes before he quickly regained control of himself and resumed his mask of indifference. "Indeed, as you say, not worth the expense. I would like to question you further about your security measures..."

Lupin saw no sign of any spell being cast, but he knew that Severus must be using Legilimency on the staff. From his own viewpoint, Lupin didn't sense any nervousness or other hints that they might be lying, but it was difficult to concentrate when every cell that they passed by made him increasingly furious and nauseous. Some of the patients lay on their cots, looking drugged like the patients in the German facility, although less clean and less well-fed, and without that look of dreamy contentment. But others howled or wailed like animals, beating on the barred doors of their cells. 

Severus asked to see the werewolf patients, and they were led to a cell containing a very dirty, hairy, and unkempt man; judging by the length of his beard, he must have been imprisoned here for several years. The werewolf stared at them with reddened, maddened eyes as he howled in anguish and rage; no doubt he had been driven insane by his captivity. He started to reach out through the bars with one hand, and Lupin wasn't sure if he was trying to strike out at his captors, or if the gesture was a desperate plea for help, or if he simply craved a little human touch and companionship. 

Lupin would never know, because one of the attendants whipped out a wand and shot a stunning spell at the werewolf, hurling him across the cell until he hit the wall with a bone-crunching thud, then slid limply to the ground.

"You do not have very good control over your patients," Severus said coldly, as Lupin fought to keep his inner wolf under control. They were in no danger as long as they stayed clear of the cell door; there had been no need, save sadistic pleasure, to use such a violent spell on the werewolf patient. He wanted to give the attendant a taste of his own medicine, to grab him and slam him against the wall, to let him know how it felt to be hurt and bullied...

Lupin was visibly trembling, and Severus said, "Control yourself, John," his voice still cold, but Lupin caught a flash of sympathy in his eyes. That was enough to keep the wolf from attacking, although Lupin couldn't completely still his shaking, but the staff didn't seem unduly alarmed; they were probably mistaking his trembling for fear again.

"Werewolves are dangerous beasts," the Director said. "They need to be shown who's boss once in awhile." He turned to the attendant. "However, make a note that Mr. Petrov should receive a stronger sedative in the future."

"Yes, sir." 

Mercifully, the rest of the tour was brief, but Lupin felt physically ill by the time it was over. He must have looked it, because as soon as they returned to the inn, Severus asked, "Are you all right, Remus?" Just the fact that he was using the name "Remus" instead of "Lupin" was a giveaway that he was worried. Normally, he always used "Lupin" in everyday conversation; Severus usually called him by his first name only in bed, or when he was feeling particularly tender or concerned.

That concern was enough to make Lupin smile, if a bit wanly, and reply, "Yes, Severus. But please tell me that you found out something useful and that we didn't go to that horrible place for nothing."

"I'm afraid not," Severus said apologetically. "The security is good, but not as good as the German sanatorium, and a truly determined and resourceful wizard could manage to break a patient out, I think. However, once again I detected no sign of a lie when I asked if a werewolf had ever escaped from their tender care. They did admit that a few patients have died of 'natural causes,' which I suspect were suicides, but that doesn't help us find our murderer."

Lupin sighed and asked dispiritedly, "Even if we discover that our rogue werewolf escaped from a particular sanatorium, how does that help us? He's long gone by now."

"The staff might know his true identity," Snape pointed out logically. "If we know where he is from and whom his family is, we know where he might go to hide and whom he might seek out for help--or whom he might seek revenge on. At the very least, we'd have a name and description to give to the Aurors."

"You're right, Severus," Lupin said, chiding himself for his self-pity. "Do you think that we can manage to shut down that sanatorium, though? There's no way in hell that anyone can argue that those poor patients are happy in that place--not even a drug-induced happiness." 

Severus thought it over, then nodded. "I'll speak to Krum. He's still a Quidditch star, and according to Dylan, he and Miss Granger have maintained their friendship even though their...ah...romantic inclinations have died out."

Lupin smiled. "I think the inclinations were mostly one-sided, on Viktor's part."

"Yes, well, it seems that he has recovered from his broken heart, because he is currently dating a female member of his team, according to the gossip magazines. In any case, he might be willing to do us a favor, and he's famous enough to exert a little influence on the Bulgarian Ministry. But before we set things into motion, I'll look into finding legitimate institutions that the patients can be transferred to. I doubt that most of them are capable of taking care of themselves at this point."

"Thank you, Severus," Lupin said, giving him a hug and a kiss. "Then at least some good will come out of this."

Severus kissed him back and asked, "Feeling better?"

"A little," Lupin replied, hugging him again. He was glad that they were doing something constructive to help the sanatorium patients, but it saddened him to know that they were probably permanently damaged by their captivity, and would never be able to lead normal lives. He was also saddened by the thought of Elsie, held captive more by her own fears than the walls of the sanatorium. He held Severus tighter, breathing in his scent and soaking in the warmth of his body. They were so close that Lupin could feel Severus's heart beating in his chest, and he felt soothed by that steady rhythm.

Severus patiently held Lupin until he calmed down and his grip loosened, then pulled back slightly and asked, "Feeling well enough to get some lunch? Our appointment to visit the Romanian sanatorium isn't until tomorrow. You said you wanted to make a holiday of this trip; let's go out and play tourist and forget about sanatoriums and murderers for a little while."

Lupin didn't have much of an appetite, but he didn't want to worry Severus further, so he agreed, and they sought out the restaurant he had visited during his last trip to Germany. The restaurant was still there, and the food was as good as he remembered, and Lupin found that he did feel better after having something to eat.

After lunch, they did a little sightseeing and bought some souvenirs to take back home for the boys and for their friends--or rather, "For your friends, since I don't have any," Severus quipped, his face and voice both utterly deadpan.

"Nonsense, Severus," Lupin chuckled. "There are more people who care about you than you know." Then he added airily, "Besides, my friends are your friends."

"I beg to differ," Severus said, giving him a look of indignation that was perhaps not entirely feigned. "And I'm sure that Black and Potter junior would, too."

"Oh, I don't believe that the three of you hate each other as much as you like to pretend," Lupin said in that cheery tone of voice that he knew always drove his lover up the wall. He had to admit, teasing Severus was helping to cheer him up. Maybe he did have a bit of Slytherin in him, for all that Severus liked to complain about his Gryffindor idiocy.

"Clearly you are delusional, Lupin," Snape said disgustedly. "A common Gryffindor trait." But the corners of his mouth twitched just the slightest bit, betraying a hint of a smile that only someone who knew him as well as Lupin did would recognize.

*** 

Later that night, they had dinner at the inn, which was crowded and noisy, filled with witches and wizards celebrating All Hallows Eve with food, laughter, music, and dancing--and copious amounts of alcohol. Lupin ordered a tankard of the inn's lager and declared it very good. Snape tried a sip at Lupin's urging, then shrugged and said, "I'll take your word for it." When he indulged in alcohol, he preferred a fine wine or brandy over ale. Actually, Lupin didn't usually drink it, either, but it was typical of the werewolf to want to try out the local food and drink, and immerse himself in the local customs while on holiday, with an almost childlike delight.

That delight was enough to keep Snape in the inn's dining area despite the noise and the crowd, things he normally avoided. He had never been much for partying, and spending an evening with a bunch of drunken strangers wasn't his idea of a good time. But Lupin finally looked relaxed and happy, after having been so upset about the sanatorium patients, particularly the young female werewolf, so Snape held his peace and tried to look like he was enjoying himself. 

"Would you like to dance?" Lupin asked suddenly.

Snape groaned inwardly, but gamely attempted a smile and said, "If you like, but you do realize that we'll attract quite a bit of attention..."

Lupin burst into laughter and said, "I was just teasing, Severus. I know that you're not one for public displays of affection; you must really be worried about me!" Then he smiled tenderly at Snape. "I'm all right now, really, but it makes me happy that you were willing to risk public humiliation for my sake. Just the thought is enough for me."

Snape was so relieved that he wasn't even annoyed at the idiot werewolf for teasing him...at least, not too much. "Keeping you amused is always my highest priority, Lupin," he said in an only slightly sarcastic voice.

"I was more touched than amused, Severus," Lupin said softly, reaching over to gently squeeze Snape's hand for just a moment, releasing it before anyone else noticed. He drained his tankard, then asked, "Shall we go back upstairs now?"

"You don't want to stay and celebrate Halloween?" Snape asked, although he hoped the answer would be "no".

Lupin shook his head. "I told you before that I wanted to celebrate Halloween with you. Privately."

He smiled in a sultry way that caused Snape to hastily rise to his feet. "As you wish, Remus. Did you have anything particular in mind?"

Lupin leaned over and whispered into his ear, "I thought that instead of dressing up in a costume, perhaps I would wear nothing at all. Quite original, don't you think?"

"Quite," Snape agreed, a little hoarsely. "And that would indeed be best conducted in the privacy of our room."

"I'm so glad you agree," Lupin said sweetly and took Snape by the hand, leading him across the dining room and back up the stairs to the room they had rented. A few of the revelers at the inn gave them curious looks, but Snape didn't even notice, because his eyes were fixed solely on Lupin's face, oblivious to everything else around him.

*** 

Back in England, Greyback was prowling the streets of Diagon Alley. The murders had made the public uneasy, but the festive atmosphere of Halloween, the most popular and important holiday in the wizarding world, seemed to have caused them to temporarily forget their fears.

 _Idiot sheep,_ Greyback thought to himself contemptuously. They deserved to be slaughtered if they were foolish enough to believe that they were safe just because it was a holiday.

But actually, the fact that it was a holiday was making it difficult for Greyback to cull a single sheep from the flock. The Macnair twins had given him permission to hunt tonight, since it would strike even more fear into the heart of the wizarding world to take a victim on All Hallow's Eve, a night associated with death and Dark Magic. However, as usual, he'd been ordered to be discreet, and the streets were too crowded for him to attack without being seen by witnesses.

So he bided his time, waiting for the crowd to thin, as he mingled with celebrants in the street, and even stopped by the Leaky Cauldron for a meal and a drink. Only the Death Eaters and a handful of Aurors were familiar with his face, so it was doubtful that anyone would have recognized him, but since it was Halloween, he took the opportunity to disguise himself, just to be on the safe side. He was dressed as the Grim Reaper, with a hooded black robe and a scythe, and a white skull mask hiding his face--an appropriate costume, he thought, grinning to himself behind the mask. The robe also served to hide the medallion he was wearing around his neck.

As he nursed a Firewhiskey, he overheard a group of young men and women talking about going to a shop called "Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes". The name "Weasley" caught his attention; the twins had told him that Arthur Weasley was the current Minister of Magic, and he couldn't imagine how that idiot had managed to survive the first war, let alone be promoted to head of the wizarding world. The man had been all idealism with no common sense, at least when Greyback had known him--or rather, known of him. 

He hadn't had much personal contact with Weasley, although Lucius Malfoy used to constantly rant about what a blood traitor Weasley was. Not that Greyback had any fondness for Malfoy, either, because he had made it clear that he regarded werewolves as less than human, on the same level with half-bloods, who were even worse than Mudbloods, in Malfoy's opinion, because they dared to sully pure wizarding blood with the filthy blood of Muggles.

But still, Arthur Weasley had been an enemy in the old days, and Greyback would savor the chance to strike at him through his cubs. It would be a particularly delicious sort of revenge, because a sentimental fool like Weasley would be much more devastated by an attack on his children than on himself. And practically speaking, it would put him in his lovely Lady Imogen's favor, because it would further weaken Arthur Weasley's standing as Minister. "How can he protect us, when he cannot even protect his own family?" the public would ask.

He continued listening in on the conversation, and learned that the shop, run by two of Arthur's sons, would be open late tonight. They were doing a booming business on Halloween, it seemed, selling fireworks and gag items like fake warts and noses, and potions that would change the color of one's skin or hair. One of the young men pointed out a woman across the room who appeared to be dressed as some kind of fanciful nymph with pale green skin and shimmering silver hair.

Greyback smiled with satisfaction and ordered another Firewhiskey. He would wait until closing time, then attack the Weasley boys when they were alone in their shop. It would be two against one, but if Greyback couldn't handle two inexperienced young pups, then he might as well turn himself back in to the sanatorium and put the chains back on himself.

He headed over to the shop late in the evening and browsed the shelves, along with a few other customers. The boys, who were obviously twins, chatted and bantered with each other as they worked, and he learned that they had two assistants, but had let them off work early so they could enjoy the holiday. That was good; Greyback had been counting on dealing with two victims, not four. It wasn't so much that he was afraid that four wizards combined could take him down, but more that the chances were likely that one of them might escape before he could kill them all.

One of the Weasley twins kept glancing at the clock hanging on the wall, and the other boy grinned knowingly. "Why don't you take off early, Fred?" he suggested. "I bet you're dying to get over to the Leaky Cauldron before they close."

"I...I don't know what you're talking about," Fred Weasley protested unconvincingly, his face flushing to match his hair.

"Come on," his brother laughed. "I know you have your eye on that pretty new waitress! Go on, it's nearly midnight; enjoy what's left of Halloween before it's over."

"Are you sure you don't mind?" 

"No problem. There's only a few customers left, anyway. I'll close up in a bit and meet you there when I'm done."

Fred grinned and slapped his brother on the back. "Thanks, George; I owe you one!"

His twin laughed good-naturedly. "Don't worry, I'll collect on that favor when I have a hot date!"

"Like that'll ever happen!"

"Hey, don't make me change my mind, Brother!"

Fred laughed and waved at his twin as he left the shop. "All right, then; I'm gone! See you later, George--and thanks again!"

There were still customers in the shop, so Greyback watched Fred leave with a little regret, but in a way, this made things even easier for him. Now he had only one wizard to deal with, and although he would have liked to kill both of Arthur Weasley's twin sons, he would compensate by tearing the remaining boy into so many pieces that the Aurors would have to put him back together like a jigsaw puzzle in order to identify the body. Maybe the sight of his son's mutilated body would drive Arthur into a nervous breakdown, thereby removing the Minister of Magic from his position and putting the Macnairs one step closer to their goal of taking over the wizarding world. 

His forced servitude to the Macnairs still rankled, but there was nothing he could do about it right now, and besides, he had benefitted from their reluctant alliance. He had the medallion that allowed him to transform at will, and the tasks that he had been assigned were hardly onerous--hunting human prey was his favorite pastime, after all. And he would very much enjoy killing Arthur Weasley's offspring.

George took care of the remaining customers, and finally, only Greyback was left. "Well, Mr. Reaper," the boy said with a grin, "it's just about closing time. What can I do for you?"

Greyback automatically reached up to touch the medallion and concentrated on transforming into his humanoid wolf form. Since his face and most of his body were hidden by the mask and robe, the Weasley boy didn't notice the change right away.

"What you can do for me, Mr. Weasley, is to die," Greyback growled. He raised a fur-covered, claw-tipped hand and ripped the mask off his face. "But not right away. I'd like it if you screamed in pain for a little while first." He grinned, showing all of his razor-sharp teeth. "Or maybe a long while, although there is the danger of being interrupted if I take too long with you." He took out his wand and cast a silence spell on the shop, so that no one would hear the boy's screams, while George turned pale and fumbled in his robes for his own wand.

*** 

Meanwhile, Bill Weasley had just got off work at Gringotts. His fiancee, Fleur, was pouting because they were supposed to have attended a Halloween party together, but he'd had to stay late at work in order to break a particularly stubborn and nasty curse on a valuable artifact. On top of that, she was already upset because the plans for their grand wedding were being overshadowed by his father's problems at the Ministry.

Actually, Bill would have preferred something small and simple like his brother Percy's wedding, but Fleur wanted a big, extravagant celebration, and he wanted his bride to be happy. The twins grumbled that it seemed like Fleur was more worried about the wedding being canceled than about their father losing his job, but Bill knew that she was worried about Dad, too. It was just that she liked to vent her frustrations vocally, and it was easier for her to complain about the wedding plans, because no one wanted to say aloud that it was looking like Dad was going to get sacked, although everyone was thinking it.

Right now, however, Fleur's attention was focused solely on the missed party. "We were supposed to 'ave been there hours ago," she complained, with just a faint trace of the heavy French accent she'd possessed when she had first come to England. "It will be over by the time we get there!"

"The night is still young," Bill said. "I'm sure that the party will still be going on into the wee hours of the morning. Besides, you didn't have to wait until I finished work; I told you to go on ahead without me."

Fleur pouted, thrusting out her full lower lip in a way that made her look ridiculously childish, and yet eminently kissable at the same time. "It would 'ave been no fun without you there."

Bill leaned over and kissed her, and her eyes softened slightly, but her lips remained stubbornly set in that pout. He sighed and tried to think of a way to placate his fiancee. Normally he'd do it with candy or flowers, or maybe a piece of jewelry, but none of the shops were open this late at night. The Leaky Cauldron and a few other bars and pubs were staying open late because it was Halloween, but a tankard of ale or even a glass of wine wouldn't do for an "I'm sorry" gift. And then he remembered that Fred and George had been planning to keep the shop open till midnight tonight.

"Darling, why don't we stop by the twins' shop?" he suggested. "You said you wanted to get a Pygmy Puff, and they've been experimenting with breeding them in different colors. They've got one in a beautiful silvery shade that almost matches your hair." He tugged playfully on a lock of her long, silver-blonde hair, and her mouth began to relax, the pout easing into a smile. "In fact, we could get a mated pair," he cajoled. "Like two lovebirds, like you and me."

"You are such a smooth-talker, Bill Weasley," Fleur said accusingly, but her smile widened.

Encouraged, Bill continued, "In fact, maybe we should just skip the party altogether. We'll get some fireworks from the twins, and pick up a bottle of elf-made wine that I've been saving at home for a special occasion, and have a private little celebration of our own. What could be more romantic than kissing under a fireworks display in the night sky?"

"Smooth-talker," Fleur repeated, and kissed Bill. "All right, let's go to the Sneezes shop."

"That's 'Wheezes,' darling," Bill corrected amiably, although he knew that Fleur already knew that perfectly well.

Fleur shrugged and said breezily, "Wheezes, Sneezes, I can never remember."

Bill grinned and held out his arm, and she took it, snuggling close to him as they walked down the street.

As they approached the shop, they could see a sudden burst of fireworks go off through the shop window, but oddly enough, could hear no explosion. 

"Are your brothers experimenting with a new product?" Fleur asked.

Bill frowned. "They have a workshop that they use to test new products; they would never risk damaging the stock in the store. Something's wrong, Fleur. Stay here while I check it out." Ignoring her protests, he drew his wand and headed towards the door.

*** 

Inside the shop, Greyback was finding the "young pup" to be slightly more challenging prey than he had anticipated. He had nimbly dodged the stunning spell that George hurled his way, but as he lunged forward to attack, the boy knocked over a display table, sending a stack of boxes flying into his path. Greyback growled impatiently and started to step over the boxes when the boy cried, "Incendio!" and the boxes exploded beneath him.

The fireworks stung and singed Greyback, but did not seriously injure him, although he did have to cast a quick charm to keep his robes from catching fire. Meanwhile, sparks were flying all over the shop, igniting other boxes of fireworks and setting off a chain reaction, while some creatures shaped like brightly colored powder puffs were squealing in alarm, bouncing frantically around their cages. The high-pitched sound was very annoying, and Greyback vowed to himself that he would literally crush the little pests as soon as he was done with the Weasley boy. He imagined closing his fist around one of the puffs until its flesh squelched like an orange, reduced to a bloody pulp.

George tensed, and Greyback suspected he was about to Apparate away, so he shot a Cruciatus Curse at the boy. But even as the Weasley brat fell to the floor, screaming in pain, he managed to kick out and knock over another display. Greyback caught a glimpse of the words "Portable Swamp" before a large box split open as it hit the floor, and a miniature swamp opened up beneath his feet. Startled, the werewolf lost his footing and fell face-first into a puddle of muck.

"YOU'RE DEAD, BOY!" Greyback roared as he struggled to his feet, spitting mucky water out of his mouth. "I'M GOING TO MANGLE YOU SO BADLY THAT NOT EVEN YOUR OWN MOTHER WILL BE ABLE TO RECOGNIZE YOU!"

"I don't think so!" a voice behind him shouted. "Stupefy!"

Greyback turned to see yet another red-haired Weasley boy--no, man--standing behind him, and then a stunning spell hit him full-force in the chest, sending him flying across the room.

"George!" the new Weasley cried, hurrying forward to check on his brother. "Are you all right?"

"I think so," George groaned, struggling to sit up.

"Bill!" a feminine voice screamed from the doorway. "Look out!"

Greyback was stunned by the spell for a moment, but quickly shook it off. He wasn't sure if it was because of his werewolf constitution, or if the medallion offered some kind of protection against magical attacks, but he didn't really care at the moment. He lunged forward at the Weasley boys and lashed out, ripping open the older brother's face with his claws. He snarled and opened his jaws wide, intending to rip out Bill's throat, but his victim managed to twist away slightly at the last moment, and Greyback's teeth closed around his shoulder instead. The taste of meat and blood in his mouth was still satisfying, and so was the scream of his prey, and the anguished cry of his prey's younger brother.

"You leave 'im alone!" the female voice shouted, and Greyback looked up to see a slender, pretty young woman standing in the doorway, glaring at him as fiercely as a mother wolf protecting her cubs, despite her fragile beauty.

"Oh, do you want to play, too, little girl?" Greyback asked, leering at her. "Sorry, but you'll have to wait until I'm done with your boyfriend."

"Fleur, run!" Bill cried desperately. Instead, the girl stood her ground and raised her wand. Greyback raised his own wand, prepared to repel a combative spell, but instead a bright flash of light went off in front of his eyes, temporarily blinding him. 

He heard one of the Weasley brothers moving behind him, probably the uninjured one, and Greyback was able to duck out of the way as a spell flew over his head and struck the wall behind him with enough force to send splinters of wood flying; a few of them lodged in the flesh of his cheek, and he snarled, swiping at them angrily and leaving streaks of Bill's blood on his face. 

Meanwhile, the girl was shouting spells in what sounded like French, and Greyback tried to dodge them, but they appeared to be aimed at his surroundings rather than himself. Objects flew off of the shelves and Greyback found himself being pelted with boxes and bottles. One of the boxes broke open, but at least it wasn't another swamp, and only spilled some kind of candy onto him. A potion bottle shattered on his arm and the liquid turned a patch of his fur bright blue. Just as his vision was beginning to clear, a large hat tried to shove itself onto his head and over his eyes, and a wand flew up of its own volition and began beating him on the head.

Greyback could hear startled exclamations from outside the store, and the French girl was yelling, "'Elp, 'elp! Call zee Aurors!" As much as he hated to lose his prey, it was time to cut his losses and run, and he cursed and Disapparated. His only consolation was that he had most likely turned Arthur Weasley's son into a werewolf.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snape and Lupin conclude their investigation and report to Arthur and the Aurors; the Macnairs and Greyback plan their next move.

Unaware of the attack on Bill Weasley, Lupin and Snape woke up the morning after Halloween, feeling relaxed and refreshed. Although Snape often complained about how annoying Lupin's cheerful attitude was, he was actually glad to see that his lover was back to normal, and he found that he much preferred an annoyingly cheery werewolf to a depressed one.

Lupin was not exactly cheery as they got ready for their appointment at the Romanian sanatorium, but he looked determined rather than despairing. Still, Snape told him, "You don't have to come; I can manage fine on my own."

"No, Severus," Lupin said firmly. "You needn't worry about me; I'll be fine. I won't be a burden to you."

"That's not what I was worried about," Snape protested, and Lupin smiled and kissed him on the cheek.

"I know," Lupin said, his determined expression softening slightly as a look of tenderness filled his eyes. "I was upset by what I saw yesterday, and I probably won't like what I'll see today, either, but the wolf is strong enough to endure it. You are my mate, and I will protect you."

"I don't need some flea-bitten mutt to guard me," Snape grumbled, but Lupin just laughed.

"I don't have fleas, Severus," Lupin said serenely, although Snape noticed that he didn't object to being called a "mutt". 

Snape's lips twitched as he fought back a smile, and said, "Very well, then; let's go."

They took a series of Portkeys to Romania, until they arrived at the sanatorium. However, the Romanian Director frowned suspiciously when Snape introduced Lupin as his werewolf "cousin".

"It's unusual for a client to bring a potential patient along with them on a preliminary visit," he said disapprovingly--no doubt because most potential patients would flee in terror when they saw the fate that awaited them.

Snape had played the part of the sympathetic cousin at the German sanatorium, but clearly that would not work here, so he smoothly shifted roles without really having to think about it. 

He sneered at Lupin and laughed maliciously, "I want the beast to see exactly what he has to look forward to. I want that anticipation to color every remaining moment of freedom that he has left." 

Lupin's acting skills were not as bad as he had pretended, because he played along beautifully, cringing away from Snape and allowing a very convincing little whimper to escape from his lips.

The Director relaxed and grinned; as Snape had correctly guessed, the man was a sadist. "Very well, Mr. Smith, let me take you and your cousin on a tour of our little facility." 

The conditions here were even worse than at the Bulgarian sanatorium--the "patients" were dressed in rags and locked in cells, with only damp, moldy straw for bedding, as if they were no better than animals. Or worse than animals, actually. Many of the sanatorium's clients probably had pet dogs and cats that were fed fine dainties and given velvet cushions to sleep on, while they locked their own blood relations up in this prison without a second thought. 

Snape did notice, however, that the security was much better than at the Bulgarian facility. The cells and the building in general were heavily warded, and watchwizards were stationed at regular intervals. It would be very difficult for a patient to escape, and completely impossible without outside help. 

Lupin probably didn't have to feign his revulsion as they passed by cells filled with patients who howled, wept, muttered incoherently, or pleaded desperately to be released; Snape saw Lupin flinch at the latter. In a few cases, the patients lay or sat quietly in their cells, eyes empty and glazed, too defeated and broken in spirit to protest their captivity.

"Do you have any werewolf patients?" Snape asked, and he was shown one of the quiet, broken men. The werewolf's eyes were vacant, and drool was running down his chin, unheeded. Lupin ducked his head to hide his expression, but Snape caught a flash of anger in those normally gentle blue eyes.

"As you can see, we have tamed this wolf," the Director boasted.

Snape hid his own anger with a cool, approving smile. "Indeed, I am impressed. Are there any other werewolves in this facility?"

"Not at the moment," the Director replied, but a hint of evasiveness in his voice caught Snape's attention.

"Really?" Snape asked casually, looking into the Director's eyes. "I am disappointed that my dear cousin will not have more of his kind to keep him company here."

The Director smiled nastily. "Oh, don't worry, Mr. Smith. We'll keep your cousin sufficiently entertained."

Lupin shivered, and Snape forced himself to laugh. "I've no doubt of that. But still, I am a little surprised that you have only one werewolf patient."

"Werewolves are rare in this country," the Director informed him. "Most of them are hunted down and killed, and few have relatives with the inclination and the wealth required to place them in a facility such as ours. Occasionally, however, we receive foreign clients such as yourself who deal with their werewolf relatives more kindly."

The sense of evasiveness was stronger this time. The man was not lying, precisely, but he was definitely hiding something. Snape felt a spark of excitement; he had been bracing himself for another disappointment, but this could be the lead they had been hoping for!

He was careful to keep his expression cool and his voice calm as he said, "I must consult with my family before I can make a formal commitment, but I intend to recommend this facility to them. May we discuss the terms of the contract?"

"Of course, Mr. Smith," the Director said eagerly, and as Snape had hoped, they were led to his office to discuss the matter in private. Snape was offered a seat in front of the Director's desk, and Lupin, still keeping up his cowed act, huddled in a far corner of the room. Snape could feel the Director's contempt as he dismissed Lupin as a possible threat and turned his full attention back to the client who held the purse strings.

They discussed fees and conditions, and Snape asked more questions about how the sanatorium dealt with werewolves, but it was clear that he was not going to pick up anything more from a cursory, wandless scan of the Director's mind. There was only one way that he was going to get the information they needed, and that was to take it by force.

He whipped out his wand, and before the Director could react, immobilized him with a silent stunning spell; he wanted to avoid verbal incantations if possible, in case they triggered some sort of alarm. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Lupin dropping his frightened werewolf act and drawing his own wand, preparing to back Snape up if necessary.

Snape cast a Legilimens spell and ruthlessly tore into the other man's mind, rifling through assorted memories of patients, clients, friends, and family members as he searched for the ones he wanted. Then he caught an image of a man in chains--a very familiar face to Snape, for all that the man was much thinner and older than when he had last seen him.

"Greyback," Snape whispered, a chill running down his spine. The werewolf couldn't possibly still be alive--but Snape felt a sick, sinking sensation in his stomach that told him it was true. The murders all made a horrible kind of sense now: the brutality and the obvious sadistic pleasure that the killer had taken in his work were Greyback's trademarks. He had seen it before in the old days, and the only reason why he hadn't recognized the handiwork as Greyback's was because he had assumed that the werewolf was dead.

Snape cursed himself for being so stupid; he was a fool to have assumed that Greyback was safely dead when he had never seen the body. Lupin had pointed out before that it was odd that Voldemort had never presented Greyback's body to his followers; the Dark Lord had always made a very visible example out of traitors to discourage dissent in the ranks. But there had been no reason to think that Greyback was still alive when no one had seen or heard from him since the Dark Lord had announced that he'd killed him.

No, come to think of it, Voldemort had never actually said that he'd killed the werewolf. All he'd said was that the problem had been dealt with and that Greyback would trouble him no more. Snape had assumed that he'd killed Greyback and rendered his body into potion ingredients, but he must have stashed the werewolf away in this sanatorium on the off-chance that he might be able to make use of him someday. But then Potter had killed the Dark Lord, leaving no one to retrieve Greyback from his prison. So who had known of his location and broken him out?

Snape searched through the Director's mind with renewed fervor, and found memories of a man and woman bribing him into releasing Greyback into their care. Their faces were not familiar to him, but they had the blurry and nondescript look that were characteristic of a glamor spell, so they had most likely disguised themselves. They never mentioned their names, saying only that they were relatives of Greyback's, and the chest of gold that they gave to the Director kept him from prying too deeply into their story. He had instructed a lackey to escort the couple to Greyback's cell, and that was the last that the Director had seen of either Greyback or the mysterious couple.

Snape withdrew from the man's mind and quickly cast a Memory Charm before slipping his wand back inside his robes. The Director blinked in confusion and said, "Ah...forgive me, I seem to have lost my train of thought. What was I saying?"

"We had just agreed on the terms of the contract," Snape replied smoothly. "Your fee is high, but under the circumstances, quite reasonable, since it ensures a lifetime of care for my dear cousin."

"Ah, yes, quite right," the Director agreed, smiling vaguely and still looking a little puzzled.

"I shall present these terms to my father," Snape said. "And if all goes well, then I shall return with my cousin and the agreed upon payment." He shook hands with the Director, discreetly passing him the expected bribe in the form of a pouch of Galleons, then he and Lupin left the Sanatorium.

They Apparated to the Romanian wizarding village, and Lupin whispered, "Did you say 'Greyback'? Is he the one we're looking for? I thought you said that he was dead!" 

"Shh!" Snape hissed. "Not in public, Lupin; we'll discuss this further when we're alone, but let's just say that the news is not good."

"I told Charlie we'd stop by for a visit," Lupin said regretfully. "But I suppose we should return directly back to London and report to the Aurors?"

"No," Snape replied thoughtfully, "let's pay Weasley a visit. The Macnairs and a few other Death Eater families have ties to Romania, so let's see if young Mr. Weasley has seen any of them in the area recently."

But when they arrived at the Dragon Reservation, it seemed that Charlie wasn't there. The staff members on duty spoke only a few words of English, and Snape knew very little Romanian, just enough to exchange polite greetings and ask for directions, but he got the impression that Charlie had unexpectedly been called back home to England.

"I think they said it was a family emergency, but I'm not sure," Snape told Lupin. "For all I know, he could have been called upon to capture a rogue dragon."

"An emergency?" Lupin asked, looking dismayed. "I hope it's nothing serious!"

"Maybe the twins have finally blown up their shop," Snape speculated.

"That's not funny, Severus!" Lupin said reproachfully.

"I was being perfectly serious, Lupin," Snape replied in a wry voice. "Don't you remember the time that a botched fireworks experiment put them in St. Mungo's?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Lupin sighed. "Well, I hope that it's nothing serious, but I think that we should return home immediately and find out what's going on."

"We aren't healers," Snape pointed out with cool logic. "If someone's been hurt, there's nothing that we can do personally, and I have one more person in Romania that I want to visit. Warren Macnair was once apprenticed to a Romanian wizard, and I'd like to know if he's been by to see his mentor recently."

"I see," Lupin said, his eyes widening with comprehension. "He might have used a visit to his old Master as a cover for going to the sanatorium."

"A Gryffindor thinking logically--will miracles never cease?" Snape asked with exaggerated sarcasm, and Lupin smiled, although his forehead was still creased with worry.

But when they arrived at the house of Warren's mentor, he refused to see them. A sharp voice informed them in no uncertain terms, "I have no desire to speak to a blood traitor who betrays his comrades!"

Snape sighed in resignation and turned away. "He wasn't a member of the Death Eaters, but he was definitely a sympathizer, so it seems that I'm a traitor in his eyes. Even if he had seen Warren, I don't think that he'd tell us the truth. I suppose we might as well go back home; we won't find out anything more here."

*** 

At Lupin's insistence, they made the Burrow their first stop when they returned to England, but found no one at home, which alarmed Lupin even further. They went to Hogwarts, and Dumbledore informed them of the attack on Bill Weasley, so they took the Floo to St. Mungo's, where the entire Weasley clan had gathered in his room, spilling out into the hallway because the room wasn't big enough to hold them all. A nurse was trying to shoo them out, saying that they should let the patient rest, but a weary-looking Takeshi Kimura waved her away.

"It's all right," he said. "Let them stay. Perhaps their presence will comfort Bill."

"What's going on, Kimura?" Snape barked out at his former student.

"Professor Snape, Remus, I'm glad you're here," the mediwizard said pleasantly, unfazed by Snape's tone of voice. There were dark circles under his eyes, spots of dried blood spattered on his green robes, and strands of hair coming loose from his long braid, making him look rather the worse for wear, but it was nothing compared to how his patient looked. 

There was a bloodstained bandage wrapped around Bill's shoulder, and his face was mangled, covered with raw, open wounds. Takeshi was gently dabbing a harsh-smelling green ointment onto those wounds, and Bill groaned softly in response, turning his head away as if even that light touch was painful. His face looked flushed and feverish, and he did not seem fully conscious. 

"It seems that we were right about our guess regarding the medallion's magic," Takeshi said gravely. "Bill wasn't coherent when they brought him in to the hospital, but George witnessed the attack, and he saw a creature who was half-man, half-wolf."

"It's all my fault," George said miserably. "The monster was actually attacking me, and Bill came to my defense. He got hurt because of me."

"It's my fault, too," Fred said guiltily. "If I hadn't taken off work early, I would have been there to help you, and maybe the three of us together could've stopped that monster."

"It's not your fault, son," Arthur said, patting him on the shoulder. "There was no way you could have known what would happen. At least George is unhurt and Bill is alive, thanks to Fleur's quick thinking."

Fleur sat at Bill's side, holding his hand, her face pale and drawn, but she looked up at her future father-in-law and gave him a brief smile.

"I'm worried," Takeshi told Lupin and Snape. "Bill's wounds aren't healing properly; I've never seen anything like it. He shows some signs of limited self-healing, which is normal in a patient infected with lycanthropy--"

Molly began to sob loudly, and Arthur wrapped his arms around her. Takeshi gave them an apologetic look and Snape flashed an irritated glance in Molly's direction.

"Hysterics won't help your son," he said curtly, and Lupin snapped, "Severus!"

The entire extended Weasley clan glared at him, including Percy's wife Penelope and even Ron's girlfriend, timid little Daphne Greengrass. But then Harry, Kingsley, and Tonks squeezed their way into the room past the assembled Weasleys.

"Now, now," Tonks said soothingly, "I know that Severus isn't exactly the most tactful person in the world, but I don't think he meant any offense. I'm sure he just meant that we should concentrate on catching Bill's attacker." She smiled at Snape and said cheerfully, "Hullo, Severus. Dumbledore told us you were back and that you had some information for us."

Snape muttered under his breath that he didn't need some little chit to defend him, and Lupin kicked him in the shin and said sweetly, "Yes, we do, but we thought that we should stop by the hospital and see how Bill was doing first."

"As I was saying," Takeshi continued, "his wounds aren't healing as fast as a werewolf's should, even for a newly-made werewolf. It's as if they healed up to a certain point and then just stopped--enough not to kill the patient, but they remain stubbornly resistant to magical treatment. It's as if the wounds are cursed, which they might well be, considering that the medallion is powered by Dark Magic. Healer Smethwyck is running tests on Bill's blood samples and looking up research on cursed wounds, but I suspect that we'll just have to let the wounds heal naturally, which will probably be a slow and painful process, and..." He hesitated for a moment, glancing nervously at Molly, then continued, "I suspect they will leave scars."

"My poor Bill," Molly wept. "Of course it doesn't matter how he looks...I should just be glad that he's alive, but...but he was such a handsome little boy...and he was supposed to be married..." She turned slowly towards Fleur, gazing at her uncertainly.

"What do you mean, 'e was 'supposed' to be married?" Fleur demanded, jumping to her feet. "You think that Bill will not wish to marry me anymore? You think, because of these bites, 'e will not love me?"

"N-no," Molly stammered, "of course not, but--"

"Or do you think it is I who would not wish to marry 'im?" Fleur interrupted. She broke into a spate of rapid, angry French that made Lupin smile and raise his eyebrows.

"My, my," he murmured. "Such a colorful vocabulary for such a proper young woman."

Fleur abruptly ceased her rant, realizing that no one other than Lupin could understand her, although they clearly caught the emotion behind her words. She glared at Molly and spoke slowly but fiercely, carefully enunciating each syllable and smoothing out her normal accent. "You thought I would not wish to marry him with such scars? What do I care how he looks?" She tossed her long, silvery hair back defiantly. "I am good-looking enough for both of us, I think! All these scars show is that my husband is brave."

Takeshi nodded approvingly. "That is how the tengu think. They are warriors, and regard each scar they receive in battle as a badge of honor."

"That is how I regard Bill's scars," Fleur declared. "He received them defending his brother; that is nothing to be ashamed of."

"You're right," Molly whispered, staring at Fleur as if seeing her for the first time. "I am the one who should be ashamed. Bill is very lucky to have you as his bride, and I...I would be honored to have you as my daughter."

The two women stared at each other for a long moment, an awkward silence forming that no one seemed willing or able to break. And then Fleur and Molly fell into each other's arms, laughing and crying at the same time.

"Great-Auntie Muriel has a very beautiful goblin-made tiara which I am sure I could persuade her to lend you for the wedding," Molly said, tears still streaming down her face. "She is very fond of Bill, you know, and it would look so lovely with your hair."

"Thank you," Fleur replied. "I am sure zat will be lovely."

Arthur smiled, brushing a tear from his eye, and Lupin smiled as well. Snape's upper lip curled slightly at such an open and extravagant display of emotion, and he muttered, "Yes, that's all very nice, I'm sure, but if we can get back to the business at hand..."

"I'm very sorry about Bill, Arthur," Kingsley said quietly. "But he seems to be in good hands, and we really need to discuss this latest attack and hear Snape's report."

"Yes, I understand," Arthur replied, his smile fading. He reached out to touch Molly on the shoulder and said, "I'm sorry, dear, but I must get back to the Ministry." She looked as though she were about to protest, and Arthur added, "We must find this killer before he hurts anyone else."

Molly's protest died away unspoken, and she bowed her head in resignation. "I understand," she said. "We'll stay here with Bill."

"I'll go with you, Dad," Percy said. "It's my duty to be by your side."

"You should stay here with your mother, son," Arthur told him.

Percy smiled faintly, glancing at his siblings. "Charlie, George, Fred, Ron, and Ginny are here to look after Mum. That nurse keeps saying that there's too many of us here, anyway. You'll be needing to issue warnings, proclamations, and press releases, and you'll need someone to handle all the paperwork. That would be me."

"Go," Molly said firmly, still teary-eyed, but managing a smile. "I'll be fine here; look after your dad for me."

"I'll stay here with your mum," Penelope said, giving Percy a kiss on the cheek. "And I'll send word if there's any change in Bill's condition."

"Thanks, Penny."

"A word with you in private, Kimura," Snape said, motioning for the mediwizard to follow them out of the room. When they were out of earshot of the rest of the Weasley clan, he asked, "What is Bill's prognosis? Your honest opinion."

Takeshi hesitated, his eyes flickering towards Arthur, who said quietly, "I would rather hear the truth than a comforting lie. And as Minister, I need to know exactly what we are dealing with in this werewolf."

"Well, the truth is that we really can't be sure what will happen to Bill until the next full moon," Takeshi replied. "I believe that he's been infected, but to what degree, I'm not sure, since the creature who attacked him was not a normal werewolf. I don't know if Bill will transform into a wolf, or a wolf-man hybrid like his attacker. There is also a small chance that he will retain his human form but develop a few wolfish characteristics, such as lengthened canine teeth, increased aggressiveness...and perhaps a propensity for rare meat." 

He smiled halfheartedly, but his attempt to lighten the mood fell flat, and he continued, "I do believe that Bill should take the Wolfsbane Potion as a precaution during the week of the waxing moon. As for his wounds, they're resisting magical treatment, so for the moment, we're using non-magical salves and medicines. Augustus Pye has a few Muggle treatments he'd like to try, but Mrs. Weasley, well..."

"Does not believe in Muggle science," Arthur finished, smiling wryly. "I trust your judgment and Healer Smethwyck's, Mr. Kimura. Do as you think best, and I'll make it right with Molly somehow."

"I'll owl you a list of remedies that you might find helpful, potions and salves that work solely due to the efficacy of the herbs, and not any magic used during the brewing process," Snape told his former student. "They may not help Bill heal faster, but at least they might ease the pain and fever."

"Thank you, Professor," Takeshi said gratefully. 

Just then, Aric appeared, marching determinedly down the corridor until he came face-to-face with Takeshi and sternly told him, "Go get some rest."

"But--" Takeshi started to protest.

"Smethwyck's orders," Aric interrupted. He turned to the others and said, "He's been up all night--or rather, all morning--with Bill."

"I'm fine," Takeshi said, but immediately disproved his words by yawning widely.

"For Merlin's sake, at least go take a short nap in the staff lounge," Aric said in exasperation. "You and Smethwyck have already done everything that you can for Bill; I promise I'll look after him while you're resting. I think I can manage to dab a little salve on his wounds without killing him. In fact, Fleur would probably be happy to do it herself."

Takeshi chuckled and said to Lupin, "Already so bossy, and he's just a trainee mediwizard."

"I think bossiness is a required trait in healers," Lupin replied with a distracted smile, most of his mind still preoccupied with the discovery that Greyback was still alive. "That's how they keep their patients in line."

"What I've noticed about healers is that they're much better at taking care of other people than they are at taking care of themselves," Aric muttered, not quite under his breath.

Arthur patted Takeshi on the shoulder and said, "Please do get some rest, Mr. Kimura. I appreciate everything that you've done for my son, and the last thing I'd want is for you to make yourself ill."

"I'll be fine; I've worked double shifts before," Takeshi assured him, then smiled at his lover's stern glare. "But I think I will go take that nap, after all." He headed down the hallway, closely followed by Aric, who obviously intended to make sure that Takeshi really was going to keep his promise.

"I am glad that Mr. Kimura will be getting his beauty rest," Snape said sarcastically, and with a touch of impatience. "But we really must discuss what Lupin and I discovered during our trip to Europe. I assure you that it is of vital importance." 

"Of course, Severus," Arthur said gravely.

*** 

They all took the Floo to the Ministry and convened in Arthur's office, and Snape explained what he had learned in Romania.

"Greyback?!" Kingsley exclaimed in dismay. "Are you sure, Snape?"

"The man that I saw in the Director's mind was unmistakably Greyback," Snape replied irritably, looking rather offended. "The Dark Lord ordered me to conduct potions research on Greyback's pack, so I spent far more time in his presence than I would have liked. I will never forget his face."

"I didn't mean to question your word," Kingsley said gruffly. "It's just such a shock...we all thought that he was dead."

"Using Legilimency on someone without their consent is illegal," Percy said disapprovingly.

"So is running an unlicensed sanatorium, not to mention imprisoning someone against their will," Snape retorted. "But the next time I have to interview a suspect, I shall endeavor to coax the information out of them over tea and biscuits."

Arthur raised a hand to forestall Percy's retort. "Let's argue the ethics of this later, son. Right now we need to concentrate on catching Greyback."

"Besides, any...er...bending of the rules occurred in Romania, where the British Ministry has no jurisdiction," Lupin pointed out helpfully. Percy frowned, but kept his silence.

"So this Greyback...he was a Death Eater?" Harry asked hesitantly.

"Not 'just' a Death Eater, Potter," Snape snapped. "He didn't join the Death Eaters because he believed in blood purity; as Lupin knows, most purebloods consider werewolves to be tainted. Greyback joined because he took pleasure in killing and torturing people, and the Dark Lord gave him free reign to do both. He was bloodthirsty and ruthless, and even his fellow Death Eaters feared him a little. Without the Dark Lord to keep him in line, he would have been just as much a threat to us as he was to the rest of the wizarding world."

"So who is controlling him now?" Tonks wondered.

"The Macnair twins?" Kingsley guessed. "Snape said he saw a man and a woman, and I never did trust those two."

"Their faces were unfamiliar, but they were probably using a glamor spell," Snape replied. "I can't prove that it was Warren and Imogen. If it was a magical disguise, I can't even prove that the woman was actually a woman. Someone with sufficient skill in Illusion spells can disguise themselves as a person of the opposite sex."

"Yes, but how likely is that?" Kingsley retorted. "Warren used to live in Romania; he could have found out about the sanatorium while he was apprenticed there. Maybe you just don't want to believe that your former students could be guilty."

"Kingsley..." Lupin said reprovingly.

"Of course I don't want them to be guilty," Snape said, sounding more weary than offended. "It would stir up more ill will against my Slytherins and cause trouble for the other Death Eater offspring, including my own son. But I can't deny that the twins are viable suspects, and I know that they must be investigated. The question is, how do you intend to do that?"

"We can't just ask them if they're guilty," Harry reasoned. "Obviously they wouldn't admit it if they were."

"As always, a master of the obvious, Potter," Snape said sarcastically.

Harry muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, "As always, a master of sarcasm." Lupin lifted his hand to his face to hide a smile while Snape scowled at the boy.

"What was that, Potter?"

"So we'll keep surveillance on the Macnairs," Tonks said hastily. "And try to get a search warrant for their residence. Or do you think that we shouldn't tip them off that we're on to them?"

"I don't think that they'll be stupid enough to keep Greyback hidden in the basement, if that's what you're asking," Snape replied. "A search of the house is more than likely to turn up empty, but I don't think that you should delay investigating them. They already know that you're suspicious of them, and time is crucial. If the Dark Lord himself had trouble controlling Greyback, I don't think that the twins will be able to control him indefinitely. It's bad enough that he's simply killing on their orders now, but if he breaks free of their control, then he will go on a rampage that will make the current situation seem like a tea party. That's assuming that the Macnairs are the culprit, of course. We can't take the chance that someone else might be involved, so you'll have to investigate the other Death Eater families. Only a Death Eater high in the Dark Lord's favor would have been entrusted with the knowledge of Greyback's existence and location."

"Who was highest in his regard, then?" Kingsley demanded.

"Lucius Malfoy, but he's dead now, obviously," Snape replied, pausing to think over the question carefully. "You can ask Narcissa if he said anything about it to her, but I think she would have told me before this if he had. And of course there are the Lestranges, who are all dead save for Rabastan, who had no close friends or family members in the outside world, but you should still question him, as well as Macnair senior. Walden was in the Dark Lord's good graces for successfully negotiating the treaty with the giants. Mulciber was not particularly in favor during the second war, but he was one of the Dark Lord's earliest recruits in the old days, and he held high status during the first war. It's unlikely, but not impossible, that the Dark Lord might have confided the truth to him at the time he staged Greyback's death. Lestrange, Macnair, and Mulciber cannot have personally freed Greyback from Azkaban, of course, but they might have arranged for a relative or ally to do so."

"Macnair's the best suspect, if we still believe that Ash was targeted specifically," Harry declared, all the hours of examining school transcripts still fresh in his mind. "He's the only one close enough in age to have gone to school with Rosalind Madley. Lestrange is too young, and Mulciber is too old. Not to mention that Imogen Macnair works at the museum where the medallion was stolen."

"Mulciber has a son relatively close in age to Rosalind," Snape objected, more out of contrariness than anything else. "And it's not unheard of for an older man to seduce a young girl, or we could be mistaken about Mr. Randolf being the target...but I will agree that the evidence weighs most heavily towards the Macnair family."

"Fine," Kingsley said, a bit curtly. "We'll handle things from here; you can go back to Hogwarts." Tonks elbowed him in the side and gave him a pointed look, and he added, a bit grudgingly, "Thank you for your help, Snape."

"We really do appreciate it, Severus," Tonks said graciously.

"It was my pleasure," Snape replied, with ironic humor, then turned to Arthur. "You do realize that it won't be possible to keep this quiet for very long?"

Arthur sighed and nodded. "I fear if we tell the public that there's a former Death Eater werewolf on the loose who can transform at will, it will cause mass panic. But they will also be in danger if we don't warn them."

"Tell them that there's an unknown type of Dark Creature that's been prowling London," Snape advised. "That's true, in a sense--Greyback is no longer a normal werewolf; he's turned into something quite strange and unique."

"And deadly," Kingsley added grimly.

"We'll follow your advice for now, Severus," Arthur decided. "Thank you. And I hate to do this, because it smacks of something Fudge might have done, but I think that the Ministry should impose a curfew, since most of the attacks have taken place late at night. Everyone should be off the streets by say...ten o'clock?"

"Perhaps nine," Percy suggested. "Mrs. Abbott was accosted sometime between nine and ten p.m."

"Nine, then," Arthur agreed. "Please write up a proclamation, Percy, although I'm sure that the bar and pub owners will complain that I'm costing them business."

"Better that they lose a few Galleons than the lives of their customers," Percy said, a bit self-righteously, as he picked up a quill and a sheet of parchment. "Besides, it will only be temporary."

"That won't stop them from complaining," Arthur sighed. "But you're right; human lives are worth more than gold. We should also issue a warning that people should travel by Floo and Apparition as much as possible, especially at night. And I think it would be a good idea to arrange for teams of Aurors or Hit Wizards to patrol Diagon Alley."

"Yes, Minister," Percy replied.

Arthur smiled. "I keep telling you that it's not really necessary to call me 'Minister,' son."

"And I keep telling you that it's not professional for me to call you 'Dad' at work," Percy said primly. "I am here in my official capacity as your assistant, and I should behave appropriately. People will not respect me--or you--if I don't."

"You're right, son," Arthur admitted, still smiling. "Or should I say 'Mr. Weasley'? I wouldn't want to be unprofessional, after all."

Percy just rolled his eyes in a manner that was, perhaps, not completely professional, but no one commented on it, although Lupin chuckled.

"Well then, Severus and I will leave you to your work," he said.

"Warn your patrols to be careful," Snape told Arthur before they left. "I can't stress enough how dangerous Greyback is. As a mage, he's mediocre at best, but he has the strength and reflexes of a werewolf, along with an overpowering thirst for blood. He's already killed the two Aurors who were guarding Alden Madley, not to mention all the people he slew during the first war, and that was before he had the medallion. He'll be twice as dangerous now that he can transform at will."

"I understand, Severus," Arthur said solemnly.

Snape still wasn't sure that the Aurors were prepared to deal with Greyback, but there wasn't much more that he could do at the moment, so he just nodded and followed Lupin through the Floo back to Hogwarts.

*** 

It had been a very bad day for Warren Macnair. First, the Aurors had shown up with a warrant authorizing them to search the family residence. Greyback was hidden at the safe house, of course, and he and Imogen had been careful to remove any books or items that might be deemed unlawful, so the Aurors had left frustrated and empty-handed. 

But it had been humiliating to have his home searched by that blood traitor Shacklebolt, not to mention Andromeda's purple-haired half-breed slut, and worst of all, the half-blood brat who was responsible for destroying the Dark Lord and putting his father in prison. Shacklebolt had deliberately thrown out insulting remarks about Father, obviously hoping to provoke Warren into attacking and giving the Aurors an excuse to arrest him, but he had not risen to the bait.

But what really bothered him was the fact that the search warrant meant that they must have found some evidence pointing in the Macnairs' direction. Arthur Weasley was scrupulously fair, even towards his enemies--the more fool he--and he wouldn't have authorized a warrant on nothing more substantial than "the Macnair twins are the children of a Death Eater."

Naturally, the Aurors would not reveal exactly what they knew to him, but they questioned him about whether he and Imogen had traveled outside of the country recently, specifically to Romania--which meant it was likely that they had discovered the Romanian sanatorium, which meant they probably knew about Greyback. However, since he and Imogen were not under arrest, it must mean that they couldn't prove a connection between the Macnairs and the sanatorium.

So Warren took a chance and denied that he had ever left England. He had a plausible excuse for being in Romania--visiting his old mentor for a job reference--but if they knew about Greyback, it would sound like a very poor and thin excuse. The Aurors obviously didn't believe him, but eventually they left.

Imogen was similarly questioned at work by Dawlish, and she backed up Warren's story, as he instinctively knew she would, although he didn't have a chance to warn her. She was his twin, his closest companion since childhood, and she knew how he thought.

On top of all that, a message from Sebastien Delauney had been sent to him via the anonymous drop box that they used to communicate. The letter said that it was urgent that they meet, but did not say why. Already in a foul mood from the Aurors' visit, Warren was of half a mind to ignore the message. The French wizard, who had been a pliable pawn at first, had been getting above himself lately.

But Imogen said that he should find out what Delauney wanted, in case it really was something important, so Warren snuck out of the house to meet him. Since the Aurors were no doubt watching the house and monitoring the Floo Network, this entailed using a secret underground passage to get far enough off the property to Apparate to Diagon Alley. There was no law against Apparition, of course, but the Aurors were probably also monitoring any spells cast on the Macnair estate, and Warren didn't want them wondering where he was going. 

"This had better be good, Delauney," Warren snarled, when he finally arrived at Delauney's room in the Leaky Cauldron.

"Oh, it is...Mr. Macnair," Delauney replied with a knowing smile.

"Wh...what?" Warren stammered. "How did you...?"

"Oh, I have my ways," Delauney replied in an infuriatingly smug voice. "Forgive me if I don't wish to give away any trade secrets. But imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that my dear patron comes from such an old and distinguished family."

Shock gave way to a murderous rage that must have shown on Warren's face, because Delauney turned pale and took a step backwards. "Now, now, please don't be angry, Mr. Macnair," the French wizard said hastily. "I beg your forgiveness for being so forward, but this is my life on the line, after all. Can you blame me for wanting to become the Snape heir in truth, for not wanting to return to a life of obscure poverty?"

"I paid you very well for your services!" Warren snapped. "And this is how you repay me?"

"Of course I am grateful to you, sir!" Delauney protested with a hurt look on his face. "I don't blame you for being angry, but if you can look at the situation objectively, I'm sure you'll agree that this could be a very beneficial alliance for both of us. For one thing, if I win the lawsuit, you will have deposed and outsmarted a former Death Eater, a man who was devious and clever enough not only to have survived the war, but to have made both sides think he was working solely for them. That will surely earn you the awe and respect of all the other pureblood families, even the ones who are opposed to you."

"Hmm," Warren said thoughtfully, grudgingly admitting to himself that the French bastard had a point, although he still didn't appreciate being blackmailed.

Encouraged, Delauney persisted, "Surely that will help elevate your status, which has been harmed by your father's arrest. Furthermore, in order to show my sincere gratitude, I swear to pledge the Snape family's wealth and backing to any future endeavors of the Macnair family."

"It's easy enough for you to make such a promise now, while you still need my help," Warren retorted. "And even easier for you to forget that promise, if and when you succeed in stealing the title away from Professor Snape."

"As I told you before, I will need your friendship more than ever, even after I win the lawsuit," Delauney reminded him. "The other pureblood families will look down on my questionable birth, and I will need the backing of an old, respected family in order to win their support." He smiled slyly. "Perhaps a marriage to a girl of good family would help to strengthen our alliance."

"You are not touching my sister, you bastard!" Warren roared, and Delauney took another step back, holding up his hands in a placating gesture, but he didn't look quite as nervous as he had before.

"It was only a suggestion," Delauney said soothingly. "As a gentleman, I would never force a lady against her will, of course, but if she were amenable to the idea..." His let his voice trail off, then he shrugged casually and changed the subject. "But I suppose I am getting ahead of myself. For now, we should concentrate on winning the trial, don't you think?" When Warren remained silent, fuming sullenly, Delauney added, "I am sure the Snapes would be quite interested to learn the identity of my patron...but of course I would never reveal that information, since we are such good friends."

"Of course," Warren replied, feigning a conciliatory smile. "You are right; we should concentrate on the trial for now. There are a few key members of the Wizengamot that I think can be brought around to our side, but it will take some time to contact them and arrange a proper bribe. That two week recess might work out in our favor, after all."

"Then I shall leave the arrangements in your capable hands," Delauney said, bowing slightly with a gracious air. "But I would appreciate it if you would keep me informed."

"Of course," Warren repeated, returning the bow. "We are allies, after all." The two men smiled at each other with equal amounts of insincerity, and Warren returned home to inform his sister of this new development.

*** 

Greyback was not really surprised when the Macnair twins turned up unexpectedly at the safe house. They hadn't planned this meeting ahead of time, but he had anticipated that his attack on Bill Weasley would generate a lot of publicity, and that the twins would want to talk to him about it. He had thought that they might be angry that he hadn't managed to finish the job and kill the Weasley boys, but he was prepared to argue that tainting a Weasley son with lycanthropy was even better than killing him outright. The public might have some sympathy for a father who'd lost his son, but they'd feel fear and revulsion towards a pureblood who had been tainted and turned into a monster.

However, it turned out that they were much more concerned about the Aurors possibly having discovered his identity through the Romanian sanatorium, and about Sebastien Delauney's blackmail attempt. Warren was mainly concerned with the latter, ranting on about how ungrateful that damned French bastard was.

"He actually had the nerve to suggest that I marry you off to him, Imogen! As if I'd give my precious sister to that bastard whoreson!"

"WHAT?!" Greyback roared, leaping to his feet, his mind clouded in a red blur of rage. The wolf wanted to tear apart the man who would dare to try and steal his mate away from him!

"Calm down, both of you," Imogen said, a little irritably. "For one thing, Warren, technically, Delauney is not a bastard. His parents were legally married before his birth; it is his father who was illegitimate."

"You're not saying that you're seriously considering his offer, are you?!" her brother demanded indignantly.

"Of course not," Imogen replied coolly. "I am merely saying that we must consider the situation logically and with clear minds if we are to deal with the problem effectively."

"And don't you forget your place, werewolf," Warren snarled, taking out his ill temper on Greyback. "My sister is not for the likes of you, either."

"I know that," Greyback growled sullenly, his rage dimming down enough for him to think rationally once more. He couldn't even touch Imogen without breaking the Vow and killing himself, but still...his inner wolf kept insisting that she was his, damn it! Even if he couldn't have her, he wouldn't let some prissy little French bastard take her away from him!

He and Warren glared at each other in mutual resentment while Imogen sighed impatiently. It occurred to Greyback that Warren was a little more overprotective than even a loving brother would normally be. Not that it was out of character for a pureblood man to object to giving his sister to either a whore's grandson or a werewolf, but it was a little odd that Imogen, a daughter of an old and traditional family, had not yet been married, or at least betrothed, to a pureblood man of similar rank. The daughters of the pureblood elite were used to make marriage alliances, but perhaps there had been no marriage offers because of Walden Macnair's arrest. 

Or perhaps it was because Imogen had been acting as chatelaine of the manor in her late mother's place, and her father and brother would have to hire a housekeeper if she left to live with a husband. Or maybe it was because they were twins who had grown up without a mother, and who had now lost their father to prison, but whatever the reason, the closeness between the twins bordered on the incestuous. Greyback didn't think that they had actually crossed that line, although he knew from experience that the purebloods could be perverts, but he also suspected that Warren would never consider any man worthy of his sister, no matter how wealthy or high-ranking or pure of blood he was.

Imogen sighed again, a little more dramatically this time, and Greyback turned to her, mastering his anger, and bowed politely. He'd show her that he could be more levelheaded than her brother, and perhaps he could win a bit of favor that way. "I beg your pardon, my Lady," he said smoothly. "How do you wish to deal with the traitor? I would be happy to take care of him for you, if you like."

"The way you took care of Bill Weasley?" Warren sneered, and Greyback had to grind his teeth together to keep from responding with a sharp retort. A low, wordless growl escaped from his lips, but Greyback was impressed with his own self-control. It was a pity Warren couldn't recognize that; in the old days, he probably would have lashed out and struck the boy, Unbreakable Vow or not.

"Let us not argue with each other right now," Imogen said impatiently. "Although you did underestimate the Weasleys, Greyback." Warren smirked and Greyback scowled at him. "However, the attack on Bill Weasley did more good than harm, in the end," Imogen continued, and it was Warren's turn to scowl. 

"You proved that the Minister cannot even protect his own family, and none of the conservative purebloods will back anyone whose bloodline is tainted, if it turns out that you did indeed infect Bill. And even many of the half-bloods and Mudbloods fear werewolves, so your mistake worked in our favor, Greyback. But do not underestimate the Weasley clan again. They are blood traitors, and they act like fools at times, but the older boys are accomplished mages. Even those idiot twins show a remarkable ingenuity at crafting new spells and magic items, although they're wasting their talents on that joke shop. And even the youngest two fought in the Final Battle and managed to survive, so any future attacks on the Weasleys must be carefully planned out in advance."

Greyback hated being shamed in front of Warren like this, but arguing further would only cause him to lose more face, so he just murmured, "Yes, my Lady."

Imogen smiled, looking surprised and pleased by the lack of an argument, and she continued, "Getting back to the problem with our French friend, it is obvious that we have to get rid of him. The Aurors are suspicious enough of us as it is, without them connecting us to the lawsuit against Snape."

"So do you want me to kill him?" Greyback asked hopefully.

"Yes, but not as a werewolf," Imogen replied. "I want him killed in a way that will make Snape a suspect."

"Ah, you think we should poison him, then!" Warren exclaimed with an approving smile.

"Exactly," Imogen agreed. "Greyback, I'll give you a Polyjuice Potion so that you can disguise yourself as Warren so he won't suspect you. He'll probably be too careful to willingly drink anything you offer, but use an Imperius Curse or stun him and pour it down his throat--whatever you have to do to make him drink it. Just don't bite him or otherwise physically damage his body in any noticeable manner."

"You take all the fun out of murder," Greyback complained. "But I will follow my Lady's orders."

Now that they had decided what to do with Delauney, Warren turned his attention back to their other problem. "Now what do we do about Greyback? If the Aurors are aware of his identity, then Ash Randolf can no longer be blamed for the murder of his parents. Not to mention that we'll be joining Father in Azkaban if they discover that we're the ones who freed him."

Imogen pursed her lips thoughtfully. "The Ministry doesn't seem to be advertising Greyback as a suspect in the press. Either they're not aware that the werewolf freed from the sanatorium is Greyback, or more likely, they don't want to create a panic by telling the public that a former Death Eater is at large--and one who can transform into a werewolf at any time of the month, to boot. All they've stated publicly is that Bill Weasley was attacked by an unknown Dark Creature, although the Daily Prophet is running rampant with wild rumors and speculation."

Warren began pacing nervously around the room. "They don't have enough evidence to arrest us yet, but if they found the sanatorium, it may only be a matter of time before they trace Greyback's release back to us. Or Arthur Weasley may become desperate enough to pull a Fudge and have us arrested without any hard evidence. There's certainly enough circumstantial evidence against us--the fact that Father is a Death Eater, and I used to live in Romania, and you work at the museum. That would have been enough to have us locked up during the first war."

"Arthur Weasley will never give up his Gryffindor ideals," Imogen disagreed. "If you look at his history over the years, he has been surprisingly stubborn, even courageous in his own nobly foolish way. Not once has he ever curried favor with Fudge and his cronies, and he refused to renounce his loyalty to Dumbledore, even when it kept him trapped in a low-paying job, and with all those brats to support, too. And he joined the Order of the Phoenix knowing that the Death Eaters wiped out entire families during the first war."

"You almost sound as if you admire him," Warren said incredulously.

"Not at all," Imogen replied calmly. "But it is always wise to evaluate your enemy's strengths as well as his weaknesses, dear brother. So getting back to my original point...we are not in danger of being arrested just yet, but we are running out of time. I would like to consult with Father, but I fear that will not be possible since the guards have been monitoring our visits very closely ever since the museum break-in."

"I think that Greyback should step up the pace of his killings," Warren said firmly. "Let us throw the wizarding world into chaos and leave no doubt in the public's mind that the 'unknown Dark Creature' is a werewolf. And I think that he should challenge Cyril Diggory for control of the werewolf pack very soon."

Imogen paused to consider her brother's suggestions. "It is very risky, but I think you are right," she eventually conceded. "We will be harder to oppose with the strength of an entire werewolf pack behind us."

 _Finally!_ Greyback silently exulted, feeling the wolf's hunger and eagerness rising within him. Finally he would be free to unleash the wolf and hunt to his heart's content!

The look on his face caused Warren to turn pale, and even Imogen looked a little shaken, although she quickly recovered and regarded him once again with her usual cool expression. "You may hunt," she told Greyback. "But be sure to take care of Delauney first. And let there be no more mistakes like Bill Weasley. Take single targets, and stay away from Order members and Aurors for now. It will cause more panic if you kill helpless civilians, anyway."

"Yes, my Lady," Greyback replied meekly, but his fierce, toothy grin caused the twins to blanch again.

*** 

Delauney opened the door willingly enough for "Warren," although he greeted his guest with an upraised wand.

"Relax," Greyback said, holding up his empty hands to show that he was unarmed. "I'm only here to talk. I have news about the lawsuit."

"Forgive me," Delauney said, slowly lowering his wand. "I thought for a moment that perhaps you had come to take revenge on me for discovering your identity."

Greyback permitted himself only a small smile, fighting to keep his wolfish glee from showing on Warren's face. "Fortunately for you, the Macnair family cannot afford to be connected to a murder right now," he said with complete truthfulness. He added silently, _Which is why they sent me._

Delauney pocketed his wand and sat down, although he still kept a wary eye on Greyback. "So what news do you bring?"

"There is a man on the Wizengamot named Pritchard," Greyback replied smoothly, giving the cover story that Imogen had created. "He is terrified of werewolves, having been the victim of an attack several months ago. Well, actually it wasn't a true werewolf attack, but one staged by an enemy of the local werewolf pack. It's a bit complicated, but apparently the experience left him so traumatized that he hates all werewolves, even though it wasn't a real werewolf that attacked him. And since Snape's lover is a werewolf, he is willing to aid our cause and work to persuade his fellow Wizengamot members to vote in our favor--in exchange for a generous bribe, of course."

"Of course I shall repay you once the Snape estate is mine," Delauney promised.

"That isn't necessary," Greyback said. "What I want is for you to back my efforts in removing Arthur Weasley from the Ministry once you become the Snape Lord." That was also part of Imogen's script, to set the French wizard at ease, since he would feel safe as long as he was still of use to the Macnair family.

Apparently it worked, because Delauney relaxed further and smiled. "That would be my pleasure."

"Shall we share a celebratory drink, then?" Greyback asked, reaching into his pocket.

Delauney pulled out his wand again, but he lowered it once he saw that Greyback wasn't pulling a wand out of his robes, only a small bottle of expensive brandy. "Forgive me, my dear patron," he said with a cynical smile. "But I fear I would not feel safe eating or drinking anything that you offered."

Greyback shrugged; it had been worth a try. "Not even if I drank from it first?"

"No, because you could have taken an antidote beforehand," Delauney replied matter-of-factly.

 _Cynical bastard,_ Greyback thought, but he was right; Greyback had taken the antidote on the off chance that he'd be able to trick the French wizard into drinking the poisoned brandy willingly. Too bad for Delauney that he was smart enough to spot the danger but not smart enough to save himself. Then again, a truly smart man would never have tried to blackmail the son of a Death Eater, so he deserved whatever he got.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way, but one way or the other, you're drinking this," Greyback growled, lunging forward. Delauney tried to raise his wand, but he was no match for werewolf speed, and Greyback's fingers were firmly wrapped around the other man's wrist before he could manage to fire off a spell. Greyback squeezed a little tighter, and Delauney cried out in pain, dropping his wand.

"Who...who are you?" Delauney whispered, his eyes wide with fear. "You aren't Macnair."

 _The Polyjuice must be wearing off,_ Greyback thought to himself, and confirmed it when he glanced down and saw his own hand, much larger than Warren's, wrapped around Delauney's wrist. Well, the potion had served its purpose, and Delauney wouldn't live long enough to reveal his identity or Warren's to anyone else.

"I'm Greyback," he said, and when the French wizard stared at him blankly, he added, "a former Death Eater and comrade of Warren's father. Not that it really matters at this point, I suppose, but I thought you ought to know the name of the man who's going to kill you."

Delauney began to plead and whimper, and Greyback stared at him in disgust. Imogen was more of a man than this pathetic creature--not that she would consider that a compliment. He increased the pressure on Delauney's wrist, feeling fragile human bones beginning to give beneath his grip, but eased off at the last second before they snapped. He wished that he could play with his prey a little longer, but Imogen had ordered him not to physically damage Delauney.

He snatched up the fallen wand and cast an Imperius Curse on Delauney with it. That was a nice piece of irony, that Delauney should die from a spell cast by his own wand.

Greyback poured out two glasses of brandy and set one in front of Delauney. "Drink it," he ordered, and the French wizard slowly reached out for the glass, his hands trembling as he tried to fight off the spell.

"Drink it!" Greyback barked. "Or I'll pour it down your damned throat!"

Delauney whined and pleaded and perhaps even threatened, but his words were rendered nearly incoherent by his sobs of despair, not to mention his accent, which had grown thicker with fear, and Greyback had no interest in trying to decipher the French wizard's whining. "Oh, shut up!" he snarled, and Delauney fell silent, although tears continued to stream down his face, and his eyes begged desperately for mercy. Too bad for him that Greyback didn't have any.

"Drink the goddamned brandy!"

With a final wordless sob, Delauney lifted the glass to his lips, drank it, and then slumped back in his chair, the glass falling out of his hands and shattering on the floor. Greyback waited a few minutes to make sure that he was really dead, then quietly departed and set out in search of more interesting prey.

*** 

Unfortunately, because of the new curfew, the streets were nearly empty that night, and Greyback was almost spotted by one of the Aurors patrolling Diagon Alley. Luck was with him, however, because he saw the Auror first, and managed to duck out of sight in time. 

So he decided to try his luck in Knockturn Alley, where the inhabitants were more willing to take risks and less inclined to obey the Ministry's directives. But even that refuge for the scum of the wizarding world was deserted, and Greyback was about to give up and call it a night when he was approached by a thin, diseased-looking whore.

"How about a date, handsome?" she asked hopefully. Her eyes had the glazed look of a potion addict, which was no doubt why she was out walking the street when there were "Dark Creatures" on the loose, hoping to earn a few Knuts towards her next fix.

Well, beggars couldn't be choosers, Greyback supposed. He reached into his pocket and held up a shiny Galleon, and the whore's eyes lit up with a kind of desperate greed. She was so transfixed by the gold coin that she didn't notice how predatory and wolfish Greyback's smile was.

"Of course, my dear," Greyback purred. "But let us go somewhere more private..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although this takes place later in the timeline than HBP, I liked the whole bit with Greyback attacking Bill, and the confrontation between Molly and Fleur in the hospital, so I incorporated that here, although my fanon versions of Molly and Fleur don't have as adversarial a relationship as their canon counterparts do. Canon Fleur can be a snob, but I do like the way she stands up to Molly.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snape becomes a suspect in Delauney's murder, and Henry makes a breakthrough in his research and asks for Snape's advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note The Porvora is the invention of Yuichi Kumakura, and appears in volumes 2 and 3 of his "Jing: King of Bandits" manga.

Snape was in the middle of teaching his seventh-year Advanced Potions class when Dumbledore's face suddenly appeared in the fireplace and said, "I apologize for interrupting your class, Severus, but something rather urgent has come up. May I see you in my office?"

"Very well, Headmaster," Snape replied, heaving an impatient, irritated sigh to disguise his worry. As annoying as Dumbledore could be at times, he did not interrupt classes on a whim. Something serious must have happened, probably another murder. Snape scowled, thinking to himself that he should have found a way to "accidentally" poison Greyback back during the first war. Then they wouldn't be having this problem now.

The students were eyeing him nervously, and Snape turned back towards them and said in a crisp, stern voice, "Continue working on your potions. If I am not back by the end of the period, label them and leave them on my desk when you are done. Mr. Rosier, I will leave you in charge while I am gone. Feel free to hand out detention if necessary." That last comment was mainly for show, as this class was reasonably well-behaved, even the Gryffindors, who followed the example of the surprisingly practical and sensible Ginny Weasley. If not for the red hair, he might have doubted that she came from the same family as her idiot brothers.

Still, Snape had a reputation to uphold, and he couldn't let the students think that he might be going soft, so he glowered at them menacingly, just on principle. Dylan respectfully replied, "Yes, Professor," and the other students nodded, looking properly meek and obedient. Or maybe they were just as worried as he was; most of them read the Daily Prophet regularly, and they must be aware of the recent string of murders. But he preferred to think that it was he who had cowed them, and for pride's sake, didn't bother to verify their motives.

He left the classroom and reported to the Headmaster's office, where he found a concerned-looking Dumbledore and Lupin waiting for him, along with a very irate Dawlish.

"Oh, bloody hell," Snape sighed wearily. "Who got killed this time, and why are you wasting time checking in at Hogwarts? You must know by now that the killer isn't Randolf or anyone else from Diggory's pack, and it's certainly not Lupin. So why aren't you out looking for Greyback?"

"First of all, we have only your word for it that Greyback is even alive," Dawlish retorted. "I don't believe that you would hesitate to lie in order to protect Lupin." Snape felt his face flush with anger, but as he opened his mouth to argue, the Auror continued, "However, Tonks and Shacklebolt are convinced, and I am willing to concede that Lupin has never seriously been considered a suspect in the murders, and you don't seem to care enough about Randolf to concoct such an unlikely story for his sake. Therefore, even though I still have a few reservations, I _am_ taking the threat of Greyback seriously, because I cannot afford to ignore the possibility that a Death Eater may be on the loose. Despite the new curfew, there was a murder last night--a prostitute in Knockturn Alley slain in the same manner as the Madleys and Mrs. Abbott and Mr. Pepper. I have all my people out searching for any clues to Greyback's whereabouts."

"So what are you doing here?" Snape asked waspishly, but he relaxed slightly. Dawlish seemed to have grudgingly accepted that Greyback was the culprit, so he was probably here to see if Snape, as a former Death Eater, might have any ideas where his former colleague could be hiding. 

But to his surprise, Dawlish continued, "However, that is not why I am here. There was another murder that took place last night--one in which you are the suspect, Snape."

"Me?!" Snape exclaimed incredulously.

"Sebastien Delauney was murdered last night," Dawlish said coldly, staring at Snape's face intently, as if searching for signs of guilt. "Poisoned, to be specific."

"And as a Potions Master, I am of course the prime suspect," Snape said with a humorless, cynical smile.

"That and the fact that Delauney was trying to steal your inheritance, yes," Dawlish replied. "The healers determined that what killed him was some brandy laced with a hemlock-based poison. Something well within the capabilities of a Master-class potion brewer, I was informed."

"Severus couldn't have killed anyone!" Lupin protested indignantly.

"Your faith in your lover is touching," Dawlish sneered. "But I have not forgotten that he used to be a Death Eater, even if you have, Lupin." He turned back to Snape. "You can't tell me that you spent all those years serving You-Know-Who without ever getting blood on your hands. Perhaps you could even justify it by saying that you had to participate in the Death Eaters' raids and murders in order to keep your cover. But the war is over, and you can't use that excuse any longer. Delauney may have been an opportunistic little weasel, but that still doesn't justify murder."

"You misunderstand me, Richard," Lupin said with an air of cool dignity. "I did not mean that Severus is not capable of taking a life under the right circumstances. He would not kill on a mere whim, of course, but I am sure that he would do whatever is necessary to protect me or our sons if our lives were in danger."

Dawlish was so stunned, gaping at Lupin in openmouthed astonishment, that Snape couldn't help but smile in amusement, although he was taken slightly aback by Lupin's statement as well.

"You aren't exactly helping my case, you know, Lupin," he murmured into his lover's ear.

"Then you agree that Snape could have killed Delauney!" Dawlish said triumphantly, quickly recovering from his shock. "He was protecting the family fortune, after all!"

Lupin shook his head. "No, Severus would kill to protect the lives of those he loved, but he would never kill simply for money."

"If you must attribute noble motives to him," Dawlish retorted in a condescending voice, "then I could argue that he was protecting his mother and son, who would be left homeless and destitute if Delauney was awarded the Snape estate."

"I would beg to differ," Lupin said quietly. "But that still isn't what I meant. When I said that Severus could not have killed anyone, I didn't mean that he was morally incapable. I meant that it is physically impossible, because he was with me all of last night. We had dinner together in the Great Hall, then went to our quarters and spent a couple of hours grading papers and working on lesson plans. Then we played a game of chess, which didn't last very long, since I'm a rotten chess player, and then we turned in and went to bed early." Lupin smiled suggestively. "Although we didn't actually go to sleep right away. I can testify without a doubt that Severus was much too, er, shall we say...occupied...to have been running around poisoning anybody."

"Lupin!" Snape hissed, his face turning scarlet. His only consolation was that Dawlish looked even more mortified than he did.

"That was...a little too much information, Lupin," Dawlish said through gritted teeth. "You need simply have said that he was with you all night. However, the testimony of a spouse or lover is not a reliable alibi."

"I would be happy to verify that statement under Truth Potion," Lupin said, smiling sweetly. "In as much detail as you would like."

Dawlish recoiled in disgust, and Dumbledore chuckled softly, then disguised it with a cough when the Auror turned to glare at him. "Since when does the Ministry doubt the testimony of a war hero, a member of the Order of the Phoenix, Mr. Dawlish?" the Headmaster asked genially, but there was a hint of steel beneath that kindly tone of voice.

"I will accept Lupin's word...for now," Dawlish replied sullenly, like a schoolboy being deprived of an expected treat. "In the meantime, I shall move on to the next suspect on my list: Selima Snape." He flashed a malicious smile at Snape. "In a way, she has an even stronger motive to get rid of the rival heir. You embraced the image of a rebel and outcast when your parents disinherited you, Snape, but your mother has no job, no other means of support, and most importantly, no status beyond her role as matriarch of the Snape clan. She would lose everything if you lost the estate."

"That may be true," Snape snarled, fighting to control his temper. He was sure that Dawlish would be happy to arrest him for assaulting an Auror, since he couldn't make the murder charge stick. "But my mother's methods have always involved political manipulation rather than murder."

"That may be true," Dawlish echoed mockingly. "But she has never stood to lose so much before. Desperate times call for desperate measures."

"You swore an oath to protect the wizarding world," Lupin said coldly, before Snape had a chance to respond. "But you seem to be less interested in justice than you are in twisting the evidence in order to carry out your own personal vendetta. Don't forget that you were wrong about Severus before."

"I haven't forgotten, Lupin," Dawlish said curtly. "But neither have I forgotten that Snape used to be a Death Eater, and he isn't all sweetness and light as you would make him out to be."

"I would never try to claim that Severus is all sweetness and light," Lupin replied. "But--"

"I don't have time to argue with you, Lupin," Dawlish interrupted. "I have a killer to catch."

The Auror abruptly departed, and Snape sighed morosely, "I suppose I should warn my mother." Lady Selima had a tendency to vent her ire on the bearer of bad news, regardless of whether or not they were actually responsible for the bad news in question.

But when he contacted her through the Floo, Selima simply frowned and said calmly, "Very well, Severus. I shall prepare to receive our guest."

"Do you want me to come over?" Snape asked cautiously. "Or perhaps send Morrigan?"

"I think I can manage to handle a single Auror by myself," Selima replied, sounding rather insulted. "Although you should keep Ms. De Lacy informed, in case Dawlish intends to persist in his persecution of you."

"All right, Mother, but--"

Selima waved her hand dismissively. "I have been dealing with these supercilious Ministry types for all of my adult life, Severus. You may return to your classes and leave Mr. Dawlish to me."

Selima's face vanished without waiting for a reply, and Snape scowled at the empty fireplace. "Did she just, in essence, tell me to run along and teach my classes like a good little boy?"

"Well, that's not quite what she said," Dumbledore replied, his eyes twinkling merrily. "However, it is true that dealing with Ministry politics is her specialty."

Lupin smiled and said, "I almost feel sorry for Dawlish...almost."

*** 

After Dawlish left, Snape made a little side trip to St. Mungo's to speak to his former student before returning to class. 

"Yes, I helped examine the body," Takeshi Kimura said, frowning. "There were no claw or bite marks, nothing to indicate that it might be a werewolf attack. Blood tests confirmed that the cause of death was poisoning."

"If Greyback was the killer, that shows more control than I thought he was capable of," Snape said thoughtfully. "Of course, one of the Macnairs, or whoever is actually pulling Greyback's strings could have done it. I have to admit that it is the sort of thing a Slytherin would do, if they were planning to commit murder--set someone else up to take the blame."

"There was some bruising on Delauney's arm, as if someone grabbed him during a struggle," Takeshi added, still frowning. "It bothered me slightly, since it seems incongruent with the poisoning. Dawlish thought that perhaps Delauney realized that the brandy was poisoned after drinking it and struggled briefly with his killer. They found a shattered glass on the floor of Delauney's room, so that makes sense. But the type of poison that was used to kill him is supposed to be tasteless. So Delauney shouldn't have been able to detect it."

"Interesting," Snape mused. "A strange combination of physical force and poison, which is normally used to avoid such force."

"Dawlish didn't seem to care," Takeshi said dryly. "He has his heart set on blaming you for the murder, Professor. Although I suspect that he knows deep down that you didn't do it."

"And are you sure that I didn't do it, Mr. Kimura?" Snape asked, arching an eyebrow, his expression deadpan.

"Of course not," his former student replied with a smile. "If you killed someone, you would be sure to do it in such a way that no blame would fall on you. Most likely it would appear to be a perfectly innocent and tragic accident, I imagine."

Snape laughed out loud. "You have a very vivid imagination, Mr. Kimura."

"Yes, Professor," Takeshi said meekly, although there was a faint glint of laughter in his eyes. "It probably comes from reading too many novels."

"Just don't share any of your imaginings with Dawlish; it might give him ideas, and he has enough of his own as it is." 

"Yes, Professor."

*** 

Dawlish Apparated to Snape Manor, but had to knock on the front door and ask for admittance, since the mansion was warded with anti-Apparition spells and its Floo connection was sealed against outsiders. Perfectly normal and logical precautions, especially for such a wealthy family, but it still annoyed Dawlish to be left standing on the doorstep like some peddler. Finally an elderly house-elf opened the door and politely inquired as to his business, and Dawlish informed it that he needed to speak to the Mistress of the house. The house-elf escorted him to a waiting room and then set off to "inform the Mistress right away".

Dawlish took a seat on an elegantly carved wooden chair that was beautiful to look at but rather uncomfortable to sit in. He shifted his weight and tapped his foot on the floor impatiently, wondering just how long the house-elf meant by "right away". Maybe it was deliberately being insolent and taking its time. Then again, the house-elf did look rather old; maybe it just took a long time for the poor wretch to hobble from one end of the huge mansion to the other. He sighed irritably and drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair.

After about fifteen minutes, the house-elf returned alone, carrying a tray laden with a tea service and a plate of small cakes. "Where is your Mistress?" Dawlish demanded as the house-elf set down the tray on a nearby table.

"Mistress apologizes for the wait," the house-elf said obsequiously. "Mistress was occupied with business, but says that she will be with the Auror shortly. Vorcher was ordered to bring the Auror refreshment while he waits."

"I didn't come here for tea," Dawlish snapped. "Inform your Mistress that I am here on very important Ministry business, and that I need to speak to her at once."

"Vorcher will do so," the house-elf said, bowing low, before scuttling out of the room. Dawlish noticed that it could move pretty fast for such an ancient-looking creature, and decided that any delay was probably deliberate on Selima's part. It was common for the purebloods to play little power games, like keeping an unwanted guest waiting.

He rose from his chair to ease his sore backside, and paced around the room. After a few minutes he decided that he might as well have a cup of tea while he waited, since the tray was already there. He poured out a cup and inhaled the aroma, recognizing it as a very fine and expensive blend, but he would expect nothing less from Lady Selima. He was about to take a sip when he realized that maybe it wouldn't be wise to eat or drink anything offered by a suspect in a fatal poisoning. But the tea did smell so very good, and it was something that he couldn't often afford on his Auror's salary...

He finally admitted to himself that he didn't really think Selima was a murderess--at least, she would never dirty her hands with such a crime directly, although she might possibly hire someone else to do it for her. It was much more in character for her to solve a problem through bribery or blackmail, but Professor Snape had annoyed Dawlish so much that he'd made a point of singling out Selima as a suspect just to get back at him. Besides, the Snapes were the most obvious beneficiaries of Delauney's death, and he could not in good conscience dismiss them as suspects without questioning them first.

Dawlish had heard many unflattering things about Selima Snape, but none of her detractors had ever described her as stupid, and even if she had killed Delauney, he was pretty sure that she wouldn't be foolish enough to poison an Auror in her own home. Still, just to be on the safe side, he cast a few poison detection spells on the tea and cakes. 

The spells detected nothing, so Dawlish drank the tea, which tasted as good as it smelled, and munched on a couple of cakes. That distracted him for a few more minutes, but his impatience quickly returned, and he resumed pacing the room. He was an Auror on Ministry business, damn it! That arrogant witch had no business keeping him waiting like he was a nobody. He ought to have her arrested for obstructing an investigation...except, he suddenly remembered, that Selima had formed a close friendship with the Minister's wife. 

Oh, she really was a conniving bitch! Much more clever than her son, Dawlish grudgingly conceded. For someone who was supposed to have been an expert spy, Snape had surprisingly little tolerance for playing politics or currying favor. Or maybe it was precisely because he had played the role of You-Know-Who's lackey for so long that he took such pleasure in being as abrasive and obnoxious as possible. 

Dawlish felt an unexpected flicker of sympathy for the Potions Master before he reminded himself that he still wasn't convinced that Snape was not merely a clever opportunist who had switched sides at the last minute when he saw that the Death Eaters were losing. Besides, after the war, Dawlish's world had been turned upside-down, and he couldn't help but suspect that Snape was partially responsible, although he laid most of the blame on Albus Dumbledore. 

Dumbledore, who had somehow managed to manipulate not just a former Death Eater, but Harry Potter, the boy hero of the war, into doing his bidding. And he was sure that it was Dumbledore who had been behind Arthur Weasley's selection as Minister of Magic. True, Fudge had been an idiot at times, but at least he had been a predictable idiot, one who would not shake the very foundation of the wizarding world. Break that foundation, and the society it supported would very likely crumble along with it. 

Not all of Weasley's ideas were bad ones, but he was pushing for too much change too soon. Giving werewolves equal rights, for Merlin's sake! Give them the Wolfsbane Potion, fine. Help them get jobs so that they didn't have to starve or live off charity, well that was admirable within reason, as long as one didn't put them in sensitive positions at the Ministry. Dawlish scowled as he thought of Ash Randolf.

But to take them off the Registry, let them run around free without monitoring them? That was madness! Well, Fenrir Greyback had never been on the official Registry, but that was beside the point. The public was in a frenzy, the Ministry officials were fighting over position like dogs over a bone, and Dawlish just hoped that he wouldn't be dragged down along with Weasley when the Minister finally fell off his pedestal.

The tea was now cold, and Dawlish was sick of pacing around the room, so he decided that he would track down Selima himself if he had to. But Vorcher appeared in the doorway, stretching out his arms to bar Dawlish from exiting the room. "Mistress said to wait here," the house-elf said firmly.

"I don't care what 'Mistress' said!" Dawlish barked. "I don't have time to sit around all day waiting for your Mistress to decide whether she's going to see me or not! I have a murder to solve, so get out of my way and let me do my job!"

The servile, cringing manner of the house-elf had vanished, and it glared up at Dawlish, angry and defiant. _It figures,_ Dawlish thought to himself, half annoyed and half amused. _Everyone in the Snape family is arrogant, right down to the bloody house-elf!_

"The Auror will not trespass in the Snape mansion!" Vorcher shouted. When it raised its hands, visibly glowing with a magical aura, Dawlish's amusement turned to alarm and he quickly drew his wand. At most times, house-elves appeared harmless, even comical, but they were capable of performing spells that many wizards could not cast even with a wand. The only thing that kept them from becoming a threat was the fact that they were bound to use their magic only in service to their masters. However, when those masters happened to be Dark Wizards...

"If you harm my house-elf, I shall file formal charges against you, Mr. Dawlish," a cool voice said, and Selima Snape appeared behind Vorcher in the doorway.

"'Your' house-elf?" Dawlish scoffed. "A house-elf belongs to the head of the family--which in this case would be Professor Snape, not you." He noted with satisfaction that his little barb had struck home when he saw Selima's eyes narrow with irritation.

"Very well, the Snape family's house-elf, Mr. Dawlish," Selima amended in an acid tone of voice that sounded remarkably like her son's. Snape must have gotten it from her, although his late father had hardly been a ray of sunshine, either.

"I had no idea that you were such a proponent of house-elf rights," Dawlish retorted sarcastically. "And what charges could you possibly lay against an Auror carrying out his duty?"

"Wanton destruction of property, for one thing," Selima replied. "A house-elf's worth cannot be measured in gold, and even if it could, not even ten years' worth of your salary could come close to matching it."

Dawlish scowled at the Snape matriarch and the pointed reminder that his own family, while pureblooded, ranked far below the Snapes and had no house-elf of their own. "I didn't harm the damned elf--" 

"Because I interrupted you before you could."

"It was about to attack me! I was defending myself!"

"Vorcher was only doing his duty, protecting the mansion against intruders."

"I am not an intruder! I am an Auror on official business!"

"And do you happen to have an official search warrant?" Selima asked with a small, superior smile that indicated she already knew the answer.

"No," Dawlish replied sullenly.

"Then you have no right to search the house without my permission." She paused for a moment, then added sarcastically, "Or my son's, since it technically belongs to him."

"I was not searching the house!" Dawlish snapped. Merlin's Beard, the mother was even more infuriating than the son! "I was searching for you, since you didn't deign to grace me with your presence! This is a murder investigation, Mrs. Snape, not a game!" He deliberately used the more modern term instead of the traditional title of "Lady," just to spite her. "And if you aren't willing to cooperate, I can come back with a warrant!"

"Now, now, this is all just a simple misunderstanding," a male voice chuckled good-naturedly. "We had called upon her just before you arrived, and she needed to see to her first set of guests before attending to the second. So I am afraid that the delay was all our fault, but I assure you that no disrespect was intended."

Vorcher stepped aside to allow Selima to enter the room, along with her guests--a man about the same age as her, who had black hair with streaks of white sweeping dramatically back from his temples, and a younger woman, pretty and dark-haired, who was gazing at Dawlish nervously. 

"And you are?" Dawlish demanded.

"Prospero Zabini, at your service," the man said, bowing with a courtly flair. "And my daughter-in-law, Olivia." The woman nodded politely, but still regarded him warily.

Dawlish vaguely recollected that the Zabinis were an old pureblood family fallen on hard times. There had been a minor scandal when a rumor started that Snape's son and the Zabini boy were lovers, although Dawlish hadn't paid much attention to it at the time. "And what are you doing here?" he asked suspiciously.

"We were paying a social call upon Lady Selima," Prospero replied nonchalantly. "She and I are old acquaintances from Hogwarts, and my grandson and hers are friends."

The Zabinis were far beneath the Snapes in both wealth and social status, not the sort that the snobbish Lady Snape would usually associate with, and Dawlish wondered if there was something more going on than a casual friendly visit. 

"An old school friend calling upon a wealthy widow, eh?" Dawlish asked in a deliberately suggestive and insulting manner. Not that he really thought Selima would seriously consider a suitor whose rank was so far below hers, but sometimes it was possible to provoke people into saying more than they intended when they lost their tempers. And it might be a little petty, but he still wanted to get back at Selima for keeping him waiting for so long.

She gave him an icy look that would have frozen him solid if she could have cast spells with her eyes alone, but Prospero remained unfazed. "Lady Selima would never dishonor her late husband by accepting a suitor before the official mourning period was over, if that's what you are implying, Mr. Dawlish," he said calmly. "I am here as a friend, nothing more. And Olivia is here as well, to prevent even the appearance of impropriety that might result from a man and woman meeting alone." He smiled, practically radiating innocence and sincerity.

Which immediately made Dawlish even more suspicious, since "innocence" and "Slytherin" were two words that generally did not fit together. "But marrying the Snape widow would certainly help fill the Zabini coffers, wouldn't it?" he sneered.

"Not necessarily," Prospero replied pleasantly. "By law it is Severus, as Lord Snape, who has control of the Snape fortune. Hypothetically speaking, he might choose to gift his mother with a dowry if she remarried--but then again, he might not, particularly if he did not approve of her hypothetical suitor. Fortunately, the Zabini coffers are full enough, if not exactly overflowing, though I thank you very much for your concern, Mr. Dawlish."

"I hadn't realized that the junk shop was doing so well," Dawlish retorted mockingly.

The Zabini Lord's smile remained amiably ingenuous, although Olivia was glaring at Dawlish by this point, and Selima's icy stare had been honed to a knife-like edge, causing Vorcher to sidle nervously away from his mistress. "Oh, the junk shop is turning a small profit," Prospero said cheerfully. "But the real money comes from my book royalties--"

"Father!" Olivia cried reproachfully, arousing Dawlish's curiosity.

"Royalties? Are you saying that you're an author?"

"Oh, I dabble a bit with the quill and ink," Prospero said modestly. Selima's icy glare seemed to thaw slightly with amusement, while Olivia grew more distressed.

"Father! You promised that you would be discreet about this!"

It had nothing to do with the murder investigation, but Dawlish just had to ask in order to satisfy his own curiosity. "What have you written? I've never heard of an author named Zabini."

"I go by the pen name Ariel Zoltaire since my prudish son believes that writing romance novels is not an appropriate occupation for a proper Slytherin."

"You're Ariel Zoltaire?!" Dawlish exclaimed excitedly without thinking. "You're the author of 'The Beggar Prince' and the 'Demon Trilogy' and...?" His voice trailed off and he flushed when he noticed that the women were staring at him in disbelief and Prospero was grinning widely. 

"Ahem," Dawlish said, clearing his throat and attempting to recover his dignity. "I've heard of you, of course," he continued, trying for a more indifferent tone of voice. "You're on the bestseller list at Flourish and Blotts, and several of the young witches at the Ministry read your books."

"I have many female fans, it's true," Prospero said with a wink and a knowing smile. "But you might be surprised to learn that I have many male readers as well. In any case, I am now making a good living off my books, and have no need to marry for money, even if Lady Selima wished to remarry--"

"Which she doesn't," Selima said firmly.

Dawlish cleared his throat again and said gruffly, "Well, getting back to the original purpose for my visit...have you heard that Sebastien Delauney was murdered last night, Lady Selima?"

"Yes, it was in the Daily Prophet," she replied coolly. "Although they said only that he was found dead under 'suspicious circumstances'."

"The circumstances were that he was poisoned," Dawlish informed her. "May I ask where you were last night?"

"I was here in the mansion, as usual," Selima replied. "I spent most of the night in the study, going over the financial accounts for the Snape holdings."

"And can anyone verify that?"

Selima gave Dawlish an irritated look. "Of course not. You know that I live here alone, except for Vorcher, and we both know that the testimony of a house-elf is not legally admissible in court."

"Mistress was home all night," Vorcher loyally piped up, but Dawlish ignored him. A house-elf's first duty was to its Master, and it would claim that the moon was made of green cheese if it thought the lie was necessary to protect its Master or the Master's family. And despite what Dawlish had said about Snape being Vorcher's true Master, the house-elf probably felt more loyalty towards Selima, whom it had served for much longer.

"Did you poison Delauney?" Dawlish asked, although there was little point to it, since she would hardly confess to him even if she had. Still, he had to at least go through the motions of conducting an interrogation.

"No," Selima replied. "And before you ask, neither did I hire anyone else to do it. That is not the Snape or the Bashir way. I would never resort to such crude methods to resolve my problems. Besides, I doubt that the Wizengamot would truly have decided in Delauney's favor, even if some of them did have a grudge against my son." She smiled cynically. "It would set a precedent, you see. Several of the Wizengamot members have mistresses, and they wouldn't want any bastard brats showing up in the future, trying to lay a claim to their estates."

"Maybe, maybe not," Dawlish growled in frustration, knowing that he had no way of proving or disproving Selima's words. Without any physical evidence or witness testimony, he would not be able to get a warrant compelling her to take Truth Potion. Besides, he wouldn't be surprised if the conniving bitch found a way to get around it. Her son was a Potions Master, after all, and was no doubt capable of brewing an antidote. "Do you have any skill with potions, Lady Selima?"

She shook her head. "That is my son's forte, not mine. My late husband did a bit of potion-brewing, but I haven't set foot in the laboratory since before his death."

Dawlish's interest perked up a bit at that, although he still doubted that Selima was the murderer. "May I take a look in the laboratory?"

"Certainly," Selima replied with a malicious smile. "Just as soon as you come back here with a search warrant."

"Perhaps I'll do that," Dawlish snarled, but they both knew that it was an empty threat. The chances of obtaining such a warrant against the best friend of the Minister's wife was slim to none. No, that wasn't really fair--Arthur wouldn't issue a warrant on only Dawlish's suspicions even for a stranger. Damn the man and his idealism!

As he turned to leave, Prospero said, "There is a question you haven't asked, Mr. Dawlish."

"And what might that be?" Dawlish snapped.

"Who was pulling Sebastien Delauney's strings?" the other wizard replied. "Who incited him to file suit against the Snapes?"

"Aren't greed and jealousy motive enough?" Dawlish retorted. "Why wouldn't he desire the wealth and respect that had always been denied to him?"

"True enough," Prospero agreed. "But the law firm of Warrington and Bole does not come cheap. Where did he get the money to hire them?"

Dawlish rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He'd been aware of the lawsuit, but being preoccupied with the werewolf murders, he hadn't paid it much heed until now, except to think that he wouldn't feel any sympathy for Snape if he lost the estate. He didn't like the slimy bastard, and it would be an ironic sort of justice for a double agent and traitor to be betrayed himself. But looking at it objectively now...

"Obviously someone is...was sponsoring Delauney," Dawlish reasoned out loud. "Someone with a grudge against the Snapes, or more likely, the Professor personally."

"And perhaps that sponsor had no more use for Delauney and decided to discard him," Prospero said. "Or perhaps he became a liability in some way--asked for more money, maybe even threatened to reveal his patron's identity to the Snapes unless he was paid off."

"That's all speculation," Dawlish argued.

"True, but it's your job to separate speculation from fact, isn't it?" Prospero asked pleasantly. "Aren't you the least bit curious as to who was funding Delauney?"

He was, but Dawlish wasn't about to admit it. "You have quite an imagination, Mr. Zabini," he said in a patronizing voice. "Perhaps you should think about writing murder mysteries."

"Perhaps I will," Prospero replied cheerfully. "In fact, that gives me a wonderful idea for my next book...a young heiress is accused of murder. The dashing young Auror assigned to the case is drawn to her beauty, even while he suspects her of murder. Torn between duty and love, will he succeed in proving his beloved innocent, or must he sentence her to life in Azkaban...?"

Selima rolled her eyes, and Olivia just sighed and shook her head. Dawlish turned and stalked out of the mansion, while Vorcher hastened to open the front door as if he couldn't get rid of the Auror fast enough--insolent little creature. As Dawlish left, he heard Prospero call out after him, "If I use your idea, I'll be sure to thank you in the dedication, Mr. Dawlish!"

Merlin, he really hoped that Zabini was just joking. He'd be the laughing stock of the Ministry if people found out that he read Zoltaire's romances--although Dawlish preferred to think of them as adventure novels. Assuming that he still had a job when Ariel Zoltaire's next book was published, which was by no means certain. Why did his favorite author have to turn out to be a friend of Selima Snape, of all people?!

Still, the idea of investigating Delauney's sponsor was a good one, and he set about doing so, although without much success. The law firm claimed confidentiality even though their client was dead, but after a few subtle and not-so-subtle threats, grudgingly admitted that Delauney had paid them personally in Galleons, and they hadn't inquired as to where he had gotten them. 

A trip to Gringotts to see whether Delauney had an account there proved even more fruitless, as the goblins refused to give out any information about their clients, not even to confirm or deny whether Delauney actually had been a client or not. He spoke to Dirk Cresswell, Head of the Goblin Liaison Office, who promised to try and cajole the information out of the goblins, although he didn't sound very hopeful about it.

Dawlish also went to speak to the last member of the Snape family, the Professor's son Theodore. The boy was a bit young to be a murderer, but then again, he was the biological son of two Death Eaters and the adopted son of a third, so the possibility had to be considered. However, he was living with the Runes Master Tremayne, and the crotchety old man wouldn't even let him into the house, even when Dawlish announced he was on official Ministry business. 

Theodore came to the door when he heard the commotion, and politely answered Dawlish's questions, stating that he had spent the night working on translations with Tremayne. The old man confirmed his apprentice's alibi and pointedly asked Dawlish if he was questioning the word of a respected scholar. When Dawlish reluctantly replied, "No," Tremayne slammed the door in his face. Just before it slammed shut, Dawlish saw Theodore smile apologetically, but he was sure that the boy was inwardly laughing at him.

Dawlish returned to the Ministry to find that none of his incompetent underlings had succeeded in tracking down Greyback yet, although he had not really expected them to. Arthur Weasley gave the Aurors permission to question the imprisoned Death Eaters with Truth Potion--maybe the man was finally gaining a sense of self-preservation, although it might be too little too late.

The results of the interrogations were unsatisfying, however, because the prisoners all claimed that they did not know where Greyback might be hiding, or even that he was still alive. In fact, Rookwood scoffed at the idea, and seemed convinced that the Aurors had made the whole thing up in order to trick them...into what, precisely, Rookwood couldn't say. To incriminate themselves further, perhaps, although since the Death Eaters were all serving life sentences, their prison terms could hardly be extended. But he seemed convinced that it was some sort of devious plot that the Aurors had concocted. 

Mulciber, on the other hand, was convinced that the Aurors must be mistaken, and that the werewolf they were looking for was someone other than Greyback. "The Dark Lord does not suffer traitors to live," he insisted. "And Greyback betrayed our Master when he disobeyed orders and killed a valuable hostage."

Crabbe and Goyle, the two idiots, just stared at Dawlish blankly and said, "How could Greyback be alive? The Dark Lord killed him years ago." Their miniscule minds could not seem to comprehend the possibility that You-Know-Who might have faked Greyback's death. Dawlish shook his head in disgust, reminded of another quarrel he'd had with Arthur over allowing Sirius Black to hire Crabbe's and Goyle's sons as his assistants. It was a security nightmare, allowing two Death Eaters' sons to work in the Ministry, albeit in low-level clerical positions, and the boys didn't seem bright enough to do much damage. Still, they worked in Werewolf Support, and the murders had been committed by a werewolf, so he made a mental note to have them investigated and perhaps placed under surveillance, although the Aurors were already stretched thin, with the patrols in Diagon Alley and round-the-clock surveillance on the Macnair twins.

As for the elder Macnair, he claimed to have no knowledge of Greyback's whereabouts, but something about him made Dawlish feel a little uneasy. His eyes were distant and expressionless as he answered the Aurors' questions, a not-uncommon side effect of Veritaserum, but it reminded Dawlish that someone with sufficient skill in Transfiguration could transform the potion into harmless water, or that Occlumency could be used to block its effects. To do so without a wand required a great deal of both skill and power, but it was not impossible; Snape had supposedly used Occlumency to deceive the Dark Lord, after all.

He could ask Snape to break into Macnair's mind, of course, but he wasn't sure that Arthur would allow such a thing, even against a Death Eater, and moreover, Dawlish wasn't sure that he trusted Snape. The Potions Master was protective of his Slytherin students, and he might bend the truth or outright lie in order to protect Warren and Imogen; he had been defending them all along during the investigation, after all.

Dawlish didn't think that the Truth Potion worked on Rabastan Lestrange, either, although he wasn't sure whether this was due to Occlumency or the fact that Lestrange was stark raving mad. Something in his mind had broken after the incident where he'd supposedly been possessed by James Potter's spirit, and he had never fully recovered. He just laughed and laughed when the Aurors told him that Greyback was alive and roaming free on the streets of London, saying, "Have fun tracking down your lost puppy!"

"Do you know where he is, Lestrange?" Dawlish growled through gritted teeth. "Or where he might be hiding?"

The Death Eater shook his head vigorously and retreated to the corner of his cell, hugging his knees to his chest and rocking back and forth on the floor. "No, and I won't help you look, either! I'm staying here where it's safe!" Then he began crooning, "Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf...?"

"We're wasting our time here," Shacklebolt sighed, and for once, Dawlish agreed with him.

Dawlish returned to his office at the Ministry, and was surprised to find a small parcel sitting on his desk. "Where did this come from?" he asked.

His secretary shrugged and replied, "It arrived by owl while you were out."

There was no return address on the package, and Dawlish eyed it suspiciously for a moment, then cast a series of detection spells on it, but found no hidden hexes. He carefully unwrapped the parcel, and to his horror, found that it contained Ariel Zoltaire's latest novel, "By the Light of the Moon". He opened the cover and saw that the front page was inscribed, "To Mr. Dawlish--thanks for reading! Best wishes, your good friend 'Ariel Zoltaire'".

He hastily shrunk the book and tucked it away in his pocket before anyone could see it. Later, when he was alone at home, he took it out and restored it to its normal size and stared at it for a moment. He had not yet read it, partly because it was being marketed as a children's book, but mostly because it was about a werewolf. He'd more than had his fill of dealing with real werewolves, and the thought of reading about fictional ones held little pleasure for him. And now every time he looked at a Zoltaire book, he'd have to recall the humiliating experience of dealing with the author and Lady Selima.

He lit a blaze in the fireplace, and was about to toss the book in it, but somehow he just couldn't bring himself to do it. He heaved a sigh of resignation, poured himself a glass of wine, sat down in a chair beside the fireplace, then opened the book and began to read.

*** 

Henry Bletchley had carefully examined every magical artifact found in the Irish ruins. The Aurors had even grudgingly given him access to the items deemed too dangerous to go on display at the museum--a sign of how desperate they must be to catch the killer, given Shacklebolt's distrust of him. He'd had to promise to conduct his research in private and consult with the Aurors before sharing his findings with anyone; Shacklebolt had not named anyone specifically, but Henry knew that he meant Imogen Macnair. 

Having no other choice, he had agreed, but he was a little annoyed and insulted that Shacklebolt seemed to think he had no common sense. He felt sorry for Imogen, it was true, and he didn't think that she was a murderer, but he wouldn't have shared potentially dangerous information about Dark artifacts with someone who was merely a casual acquaintance.

However, the precautions that Shacklebolt had imposed on him remained hypothetical so far, since he had found nothing useful relating to the investigation. There was one interesting artifact, a large, thin sheet of copper engraved with what appeared to be a map of Ireland, with jewels marking significant locations on the map. It was badly tarnished and dented and missing a chunk out of one corner, but a few residual traces of the original enchantment remained, enough to tell Henry that the Dark Prince had once used this map to keep watch over his domain, perhaps even track the movements of his servants. This was encouraging, because it supported his theory that the Prince had used a magical device to control his servants, but on the other hand, it brought him no closer to finding that device.

Henry spent most of each day testing the artifacts, trying to discover any hidden properties, and he stayed up late each night reading the notes taken by the archaeological team, as well as the runes translated by Master Tremayne and Theodore. They offered tantalizing hints that the Prince had kept strict control over his guards and servants, many of whom were magical creatures or constructs, but were infuriatingly vague as to how he had actually controlled them.

Having had no luck with the magical artifacts, Henry turned his attention to the non-magical items that had been found in the ruins. They had already been tested for magical auras, of course, but in very rare cases, the enchantment on an item could be disguised or set to remain dormant until a particular condition triggered it into action. There was only a slim chance that the other researchers had overlooked such an enchantment, but surely it couldn't hurt to check, when the only other alternative was to simply give up. His pride wouldn't allow him to admit defeat to Shacklebolt, and he didn't want to disappoint Erika, who was so determined to protect her werewolf brother.

The non-magical artifacts had been carelessly packed away into boxes for storage, having been deemed unimportant for the most part by the archaeologists whose main goal had been to unearth the unique magical items and spells that the Prince had created. Still, the non-magical items had been saved, perhaps to be used in a museum display someday.

Henry revised his opinion of the archaeological team upwards a few notches as he unpacked the boxes, and offered up a silent apology; he had been wrong to say they were careless. They might have regarded the non-magical artifacts as unimportant, but each item had been bagged, then labeled and methodically cataloged, with a notation as to when and where it had been found.

There were mundane, if slightly gaudy, items such as goblets and platters made of gold and silver; the Prince had been given to ostentatious displays of his wealth, it seemed, which was odd, since there had been no one other than his servants to admire them. As a paranoid recluse, the Prince had almost never invited guests into his tower.

There were also vases and furnishings, most of them broken into pieces, and scraps of velvet that might have come from a robe or tapestry. It was almost impossible to determine the original source now, but it didn't really matter, since Henry doubted that the Prince would have used a robe or tapestry as a control device. And since the control device would have to be something that he could have easily carried on his person, Henry also ruled out the vases, furnishings, plates, and goblets, and after a cursory examination, he carefully packed them away again.

Finally, he examined the items that held the most potential: pieces of jewelry that were valuable in the monetary sense, but useless to the archaeologists who had been intent upon making magical discoveries. There were rings, bracelets, torcs, necklaces, and armbands, made of silver and gold and platinum, many of them studded with precious gems. Some pieces were broken, and others had been melted into lumps of slag, presumably by the mysterious force that had destroyed the tower, whether it had been a duel between the Prince and a powerful rival, or a magical experiment gone wrong.

As for the nameless Prince, no sign of him had been found in the tower, not even a single finger bone. Maybe he had somehow escaped before the tower fell, but Henry thought it was more likely that he had been completely and utterly destroyed, leaving behind nothing except perhaps a bit of ash that had mingled with the rubble of the Tower, becoming indistinguishable from the bits of powdered stone.

Supporting this theory was the fact that the focus of the destruction seemed to have centered around the Prince's throne room. The very walls had crumbled into rubble, and the throne, which had been carved from a single huge slab of marble, had been blasted into pieces. Nothing in the room had survived intact, although there were a few singed scraps of velvet that might be the remains of the Prince's robes, a few shards of porcelain that might have been a vase or statue, and a few splinters of wood that might or might not have been a wizard's wand or staff. Nothing at all...except for a single gold ring set with a large ruby.

The team had been excited when they found it, convinced that it must be a powerful magical artifact. However, extensive testing had not detected a single trace of magic on the ring, so they had filed it away as a disappointment, a mere bauble that had survived through sheer coincidence.

But Henry did not believe in coincidence, so he examined the ring very carefully. It was obviously a man's ring, with a wide, heavy band etched with a design of vines winding around the ring in a sinuous pattern that made Henry a little dizzy if he stared at it for too long. Maybe if he took a photograph of the ring and sent it to Tremayne and Theodore, they would be able to determine whether or not there were runes hidden in that design or if it was purely decorative.

The ring was encrusted with dirt and grime, making it difficult to see the intricacies of the vine pattern, so Henry decided to clean it before taking the photo. He gently wiped away the grime with a soft cloth dipped in a mild cleaning solution, allowing the gold beneath to shine through. He still couldn't make out any individual runes, but an expert like Tremayne might be able to see something that he couldn't.

It only took a few minutes to clean the band, but there was more grime stubbornly caked around the setting of the ruby, more deeply than the cloth could easily reach. A cleaning spell was normally considered very minor and harmless magic, but Henry didn't want to try casting one on the ring until he knew for sure whether or not it was really magical, because sometimes two types of magic could clash with unpredictable results. It was probably an unnecessary precaution, but given the Dark and destructive nature of most of the other magical artifacts found in the tower, he didn't want to take any chances.

So he took a thin metal pick from his tool kit, and very carefully began scraping away the grime trapped between the ruby and the gold setting. Little clumps and flakes of dirt came loose and fell onto his desk, and Henry frowned as he took a closer look at them. They were a dark reddish-brown, not the gray of ash and powdered stone, or the black of soot. Struck by a sudden suspicion, Henry opened a small vial of potion that was used to detect the presence of blood, and sprinkled a few drops on the flakes of dirt, which immediately began glowing bright red.

Henry's heart began pounding with excitement. Now, it might be that there was blood on the ring only because the Prince had been injured in the duel that had destroyed his tower. But if he had been wearing the ring at the time, why hadn't it been vaporized along with his body, or at least melted down into slag?

The more logical answer was that the ring was a Dark artifact, and most Dark magics were fueled by blood or malice, or both. The ring had gone dormant due to the death of its master, but blood might reawaken it again...

Henry hesitated for a moment, weighing the risks in his mind, but there was no way to confirm his theory other than to actually test it. He cut his fingertip with a knife and allowed a single drop of his blood to fall onto the ruby, which glowed red for a moment, then faded and returned to normal.

But this time, when Henry cast his detection spells, they registered positive for both magic in general, and Dark Magic in particular. He was still a long way from figuring out how to use the ring's magic to find the werewolf who had stolen the medallion, but it was a first step, and he grinned exultantly. He was supposed to notify the Aurors immediately if he discovered anything significant, but he had taken on this project at Erika's behest, and he wanted to give her the good news first. She worked at the Ministry, after all, so surely it couldn't do any harm to stop by her department first before reporting to the Aurors.

However, when he stopped by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, he was informed that Erika was in St. Mungo's.

"What happened?!" Henry cried. "It...it wasn't another werewolf attack, was it?" 

Erika was the sister of a werewolf who belonged to the same pack as Ash Randolf, so maybe she had become a target by association. He was gripped by a paralyzing sense of fear that seemed out of proportion, considering that he barely knew Erika. He told himself that any decent human being would be horrified at the prospect of someone they knew, however briefly, being savaged by a werewolf.

"No, nothing like that," the other staff member assured him. "She was injured while confiscating an unlicensed magical beast...a Porvora, to be exact."

Henry couldn't remember exactly what a Porvora was, but he didn't bother asking for a more detailed explanation. Instead, he ran off to take the Floo to St. Mungo's, completely forgetting about the magical ring.

*** 

Meanwhile, alone in the safe house, Greyback felt a brief tingling sensation on the skin of his chest, almost like a burst of static electricity, right beneath where the medallion rested. Then it vanished as quickly as it had appeared. He pulled open his robes to examine his chest, but found no mark there, not the slightest bruise or welt or even reddening of the skin. 

He wondered uneasily if he ought to mention this to the twins, then decided against it. Maybe it was a natural effect of the medallion's magic that hadn't manifested until now, or maybe he had just imagined the whole thing. It had only lasted for about a second, after all. He could imagine Warren mocking him, asking him if he had changed from a wolf into a cowardly mutt who jumped at shadows.

But what he really feared was that Imogen would take him seriously and forbid him to use the medallion. She had only reluctantly agreed to let him steal it, and she had been worried at first that the medallion might not function properly because it was damaged. If she thought it was malfunctioning, she would probably take it away from him, not so much because she was concerned about his safety, but because she and her brother would lose a valuable servant if the medallion killed Greyback. Not to mention that she would never take the risk that Greyback might lose his sanity and attack them while in wolf form.

Greyback didn't want to die, of course, or be killed by the Unbreakable Vow if he should unintentionally break his promise, but he was loathe to give up his prize unless he was sure that it was a danger to himself and the twins. He would remain quiet for now and wait to see if any other side effects occurred. The freedom of being able to transform at will was surely worth a few risks.

*** 

The Ministry had received a tip that Otto Bagman was keeping a Porvora on his property--the man really had no common sense. He already had a number of previous complaints filed against him for possessing illegal Muggle devices, and now it seemed that he was moving on to magical creatures. Properly handled, Porvoras were gentle, friendly animals, but they were known as "living bombs" because their blood was highly explosive, and the timid creatures had a habit of blowing up themselves--and anything else in the near vicinity--when they were frightened. Naturally, capturing one was an unpopular task, so this assignment was given to the most junior member of the Control of Magical Creatures department, which happened to be Erika Dietrich.

Erika didn't mind; she had done her research and was prepared to deal with the creature. When she arrived at Bagman's house, she found the Porvora penned up in the front yard, and she shook her head in disbelief. You would think that someone who was keeping an illegal pet would hide it somewhere out of sight, not leave it out in the open where anyone--particularly the neighboring Muggles--might see it! Then again, no one with even a scrap of intelligence would be keeping a pet Porvora to begin with.

The Porvora was deceptively cute and harmless-looking, resembling a quaffle-sized puffskein with large round eyes; fox-like ears; tiny, clawed hands and feet; and a long, thin, tufted tail. It chirped at her nervously, and she tossed it a piece of milk chocolate, a Porvora's favorite food. The animal immediately relaxed and began nibbling on the treat happily, just as Otto Bagman opened the front door and hurried out to confront Erika. She immediately hit him with a silence spell before he could shout and startle the Porvora into exploding. Then, while the little creature was still distracted by the chocolate, she cast a sleep spell on it, and it fell over and began snoring, not even knowing what had hit it.

After she had securely locked the Porvora in the portable cage she had brought, Erika lifted the spell on Bagman and handed him a formal Ministry writ. "Otto Bagman, you are charged with possession of a prohibited magical creature without a license. Due to the especially dangerous nature of the creature in question, a fine of five hundred Galleons is being levied against you. I will also recommend to the Department Head that you be given a prison sentence of two weeks, since past fines have not seemed to curb your propensity for violating the law."

"But you don't understand!" Bagman wailed. "I need that animal for protection--it's a watchbeast!"

"Protection against what?" Erika asked irritably. 

"Against werewolves, of course!" Bagman replied. "Why aren't you doing your job rounding up the murderous werewolves that are running loose instead of harassing innocent citizens who are just trying to protect themselves?!"

"The recent murders are believed to be the work of a single creature, not multiple werewolves," Erika said in a cold voice. "The Aurors are handling that case, so if you have any complaints, take it up with them." Although she did not mention it to Bagman, her department had been helping to monitor known werewolves, but Erika had been left out of that particular assignment. No official reason was given, but she assumed it was because the Department Head feared she would not be objective since her own brother was a werewolf.

"Besides," Erika added, "how is this creature supposed to protect you from a werewolf?"

"Well, obviously it would explode and blow up the werewolf if one came near the house!"

"It's more likely to blow you up, Mr. Bagman!" Erika retorted. "Which wouldn't really concern me, except that there's also a chance that your neighbors could be hurt, to say nothing of all the Muggle memories that the Ministry would have to Obliviate!" 

"Please, you can't take away my protection and leave me helpless," Bagman whined, grabbing at Erika's arm. "Please, Miss...er..."

"Dietrich," Erika supplied. "My name is Erika Dietrich. Now unhand me and let me be on my way before I also charge you with assaulting a Ministry employee."

"But the Daily Prophet says we're all in danger," Bagman started to protest, then abruptly fell silent as a look of recognition filled his face. "Dietrich? You're the Dietrich heiress, the one whose brother was turned into a werewolf?"

"Yes," Erika replied curtly, jerking her arm free from Bagman's grasp. She picked up the cage and prepared to Apparate, but Bagman lunged forward and grabbed her again.

"You're in league with them, aren't you?" he demanded hysterically. "You're protecting the werewolves! You're taking away my Porvora so that I'll be easy prey for them!"

"Have you gone insane?" Erika snarled. "Let go of me!" 

But Bagman was caught up in his delusion, and continued struggling with Erika, trying to grab the cage away from her. She was unable to reach her wand at the moment, since her hands were occupied with holding onto the cage and fending off Bagman, so she drove her knee into his crotch, and he let go of Erika and fell backwards, howling in pain. Unfortunately, that left Erika off-balance, and she fell too, dropping the cage, which rolled over onto its side. She quickly scrambled back to her feet and reached into her pocket for her wand, although Bagman no longer appeared to be a threat. Her hand had just closed around the wand when she heard a frightened little squeak from the fallen cage, and turned to see the Porvora blinking sleepily and looking around in confusion.

Meanwhile, Bagman was still groaning loudly, too preoccupied to notice that the Porvora had woken up. "Shut up, Bagman, or you'll get us both killed!" Erika hissed. Slowly backing away from the cage as she drew out her wand, she murmured soothingly, "Good Porvora, don't be scared; I have a nice piece of chocolate for you..."

Still oblivious, Bagman shouted, "Damn you, Dietrich, you bitch!" as he clutched at his wounded privates.

Erika had only just begun to cast a shield spell when the Porvora exploded.

*** 

Henry arrived at St. Mungo's and got Erika's room number from the receptionist, who assured him that Miss Dietrich had suffered some serious injuries, but would make a full recovery. That eased his concern slightly, but he still hurried to her room, anxious to see for himself just how bad her injuries were. 

He came to an abrupt halt outside her room, feeling a heavy, almost palpable aura of tension hanging in the air. Erika's family, whom he had met at the party--her parents and grandparents--were standing out in the hall confronting a tall, dark-haired young man, who by the look of him, must be Erika's younger brother Aric, the werewolf.

"You do not belong here," Roderick Dietrich, the patriarch of the family, was saying coldly to his grandson.

"Maybe you want nothing to do with me, but Erika is still my sister," Aric retorted just as coldly. "Did you think I wouldn't care when I heard she was hurt?"

"If you cared about this family, you wouldn't be associating with that werewolf...pack!" Roderick spat out the last word, making it sound like an obscenity. "It's bad enough that you were turned, but for you to flaunt your disgrace by openly associating with other werewolves--!"

"There's no point in pretending to be something that I'm not," Aric snarled. "Especially when the entire wizarding world knows that I've been turned! Those werewolves that you hate so much accepted me and gave me a home when my own flesh and blood turned their backs on me!"

"Please, dear, let's not make a scene out in public," Aric's grandmother said tearfully, but it wasn't clear whether she was speaking to her husband or her grandson.

"Grandfather, stop bullying Aric!" a weak but cross female voice called out from the hospital room.

Henry chuckled with relief and said, "Well, she must be all right if she's feeling well enough to argue!"

"Oh, Mr. Bletchley," Alison Dietrich said in surprise when she spotted him. Despite the awkward situation, she was quick to compose herself and say politely, "Have you come to see Erika? It's so kind of you to be concerned."

"Not at all; it's the least I could do," Henry replied, just as politely. He hated the complicated dance of pureblood manners and etiquette, but he had been drilled in it all his life, as most Slytherins were. "Please, I don't want to interrupt a family visit. Why don't you go on ahead, and I'll stop by the gift shop to get some flowers for Miss Dietrich and visit with her a little later." 

Henry noticed that Erika's brother was clad in the lime-green uniform of a St. Mungo's mediwizard, so he turned to Aric and said smoothly, "I know that you must be concerned about your sister, Mr. Dietrich, but it would greatly ease my mind if you could spare a few minutes to inform me of her condition."

Aric stared at him suspiciously for a moment, then grudgingly nodded, and the air of tension dissipated. The Dietriches filed into Erika's room, and Aric led Henry down the hall towards the gift shop. "Did you really want to buy flowers for Erika?"

"It was really more of a convenient excuse, but it would be the polite thing to do," Henry replied. "I'm sorry to interfere in a private matter, but I just..."

"No, it's all right," Aric said with a wry smile. "I suppose it wouldn't be good for either my sister's recovery or my career if I got into a brawl with my grandfather at the hospital. Are you one of Erika's suitors?"

"Just a friend," Henry replied, holding out his hand. "I'm Henry Bletchley."

"Aric Dietrich," Aric said, grasping Henry's hand firmly and shaking it. "Oh, you're the scholar from the museum, right? Erika said that you were helping to track down the medallion."

That suddenly reminded Henry of his discovery. "Yes, actually, I'd just gone to the Ministry to tell Erika that I'd found something useful, but her office told me she'd been injured, so I came straight here."

"Really?" Aric asked eagerly. "You found something that will help catch the killer?"

"Shh," Henry cautioned. "It's supposed to be classified information. I have to discuss it with the Aurors first, but I think that what I've found could be a big help to them."

"If it is, then I'm in your debt," Aric said, looking much friendlier than he had a few minutes ago. "You know how the Ministry is. If they can't find the real criminal, then they'll start looking for a scapegoat."

"I'll do whatever I can to help," Henry promised.

"Thanks," Aric said. Then he frowned at Henry, looking a little suspicious again.

"Is something wrong?" Henry asked.

"You said that you're a friend of my sister, but how exactly do you know her?"

"Um, well, we met at a party," Henry replied nervously. He had been caught off-guard by that unexpected question, and wasn't able to think up a convincing lie in time.

"Aha!" Aric exclaimed almost triumphantly. "You're one of the eligible men that my mother was recruiting as potential suitors, right?"

"I was just invited because I come from a prominent pureblood family," Henry replied, trying to sound casual about it. "Really, I'm not a suitor."

"Why not?" Aric demanded belligerently. "Don't you like my sister? What's wrong with her?"

"Nothing at all!" Henry hastily demurred. "She's a very beautiful young woman--and brave, intelligent, and compassionate as well! Any man would be proud to have such a wife!"

"Any man except you?" Aric asked pointedly.

Henry laughed nervously. "Oh, I'm a confirmed old bachelor scholar. Your sister can do much better than me, I'm sure."

"Hmm," Aric murmured, staring at Henry with a thoughtful gaze that was intense enough to make him sweat.

"Excuse me, Aric," a nurse called out. "A victim of a grindylow attack has just been brought in, and Healer Smethwyck needs your help."

"I'll be right there," Aric told her. "I guess we'll talk later, Henry. Give Erika my best."

"I will," Henry replied, and slumped against the wall in relief once Aric was out of sight. He realized then that he had never got around to asking about Erika's condition, but he supposed that he could ask her directly in a little while.

He got some flowers from the gift shop and waited long enough (he hoped) for Erika's family to leave. Fortunately, he had judged correctly and the room was empty of visitors by the time he arrived. 

"Hello, Henry," Erika said with a smile. Her arms were wrapped in bandages, leaving only her fingertips bare, and there were red, half-healed burn marks on her face, but she seemed to be in good spirits. "Thanks for defusing that argument out in the hall earlier."

"No problem," Henry replied, placing the flowers in an empty vase. "How are you feeling?"

"Much better than that idiot Bagman," Erika said, her eyes glittering dangerously. She looked just as intimidating as her werewolf brother, if not more so, and Henry was glad that her anger wasn't directed at him. She explained about confiscating the Porvora and added, "Fortunately, I was able to partially shield myself from the explosion, but Bagman took the full brunt of it. Unfortunately, I'm told that he'll survive, but at least it's definite that he'll get some prison time for causing injury to a Ministry official in the course of her duties." Suddenly she laughed and added, "Getting injured by a Porvora explosion is becoming something of a Dietrich family tradition, it seems. My brother was hurt by one in school last year."

"How did a Porvora ever get into Hogwarts?" Henry asked.

"Oh, some idiot teacher thought they'd be a good subject for Care of Magical Creatures," Erika replied offhandedly. "Another student who had a grudge against Aric stole one and hid it in a Christmas present as a prank."

"Nasty prank."

"Mm, well, my little brother can be a git at times, but that was a bit extreme. I'd have hexed him into oblivion when I found out who it was, but it seems that he's repentant and even volunteered to work in the werewolf clinic as penance for his crimes, so Aric asked me not to kill him." Erika smiled fondly. "Imagine that, my brother being merciful! And he was always such a ruthless little boy. I suppose that means he's growing up."

That turned into a reminiscence of Aric's childhood and an explanation of how he had run afoul of the R.A., a secret society of students who had been intent on proving that the Slytherins were Death Eaters. 

Henry shook his head. "Who could imagine that Hogwarts was so full of intrigue? Then again, I suppose the school has always had its secrets. There were all those stories about the Chamber of Secrets and the Heir of Slytherin, which actually turned out to be true."

"By the way, how is your research coming along?" Erika asked.

"Oh, that's right; I almost forgot!" Henry exclaimed. "I believe I've found the control device! I was on my way to tell you, but then your office told me that you'd been injured and--"

"What?!" Erika cried. "Are you sure?"

"I can't prove it beyond a doubt yet, but I'm reasonably sure," Henry replied. "And I still have to figure out how to use it to control the medallion, but--"

"Then what are you doing wasting your time here?" Erika demanded indignantly.

"Er, well, you were hurt and--"

"I appreciate your concern, but you need to get back to work so you can figure out how to use the device," Erika said in a firm voice, and as injured as she was, practically threw him out of the room. 

Or at least, he was convinced that she would have physically shoved him out the door and through the nearest Floo if he hadn't left of his own volition, and he was worried that she might aggravate her wounds, so he left at her urging, wondering why he felt a little disgruntled. True, it was a bit rude to make a guest leave so hastily, but there was a killer at large, after all, and Henry held the key to capturing him. It was vital to get that information to the Aurors as soon as possible. 

He took the Floo back to the Ministry and found Shacklebolt, Tonks, and the Potter boy in the Aurors' office, sorting through tips and looking over maps of Britain. "Bletchley!" Shacklebolt said hopefully. "Have you found something useful?"

"I hope so," Henry replied, and showed him the ring.

"Let's talk somewhere more private," Tonks suggested, and they moved into one of the interview rooms, closing the door behind them. "I thought it might be better to discuss this without Dawlish's lackeys listening in."

Henry explained what he had discovered, and the Aurors' faces lit up. "Then we can use this to control Greyback?" Potter asked excitedly. "Maybe even summon him right into a prison cell?"

"Possibly," Henry started to reply, then the boy's words belatedly sank in. "Greyback? You've figured out the killer's identity? But I thought he was dead!"

"Harry," Shacklebolt said reproachfully. "That's supposed to be classified information."

"Sorry," the boy said sheepishly. "I was just so excited, I forgot."

Tonks smiled kindly at him. "It's all right, Harry. We're all so tired that it's difficult to think straight." Henry noticed that both she and Potter were pale, and had dark circles beneath their eyes, as if they'd gotten little sleep the night before, or possibly for the past several nights. Shacklebolt's darker skin disguised any such symptoms on his face, but there was an air of weariness about him as well.

"Everyone's been working overtime on this case," Shacklebolt sighed, confirming Henry's guess. "Well, I suppose there's no harm done, but you'll have to swear to keep this information to yourself, Bletchley. Yes, Greyback is the killer, and he's probably working for a Death Eater, or more likely, one of the Death Eater's relatives. But the Ministry doesn't want a panic to break out, so we're keeping it quiet for now."

"I understand," Henry said solemnly. "I promise that I won't say anything, on my word of honor as a Slytherin."

He thought for a moment that Shacklebolt was going to say something about a Slytherin's honor not being very trustworthy, but the Auror just nodded and said, "Thank you."

"So what's the next step?" Potter asked eagerly. "How do we use the ring to command Greyback?"

"I'm not really sure," Henry confessed. "There may already be a sufficient connection between the ring and the medallion, or I might need some blood from Greyback in order to forge that connection. I suspect that one of us is going to need to put on the ring to test these theories, and I'm a little loathe to do so at the moment, considering how many traps the Prince had in his tower. It did respond to my blood, which is a positive sign, but for all we know, it might be enchanted to kill anyone who dons it other than its true owner."

"If we need blood from Greyback, that's going to be a problem," Tonks said gloomily. "If we could get close enough to draw blood from him, we wouldn't need the ring to find him."

"I hate to say this," Potter said. "But Professor Snape is an expert in Dark Magic. Maybe we should ask him for advice?"

"That's a good idea, Mr. Potter," Henry agreed. "I would appreciate his help, if he's willing to give it."

So the Aurors contacted Snape, who arrived with his lover Lupin. It was so strange that Snape, who had been part of Lucius Malfoy's crowd in school, had fallen in love with a werewolf. 

_Then again, maybe not,_ Henry reconsidered. Snape had always had a fascination with the Dark Arts, so maybe it wasn't so strange that he would be drawn to a Dark Creature.

Although Remus Lupin looked anything but Dark, with his sunny smile and silver-streaked golden-brown hair. "I don't know how much help I can be, but I asked Severus to let me tag along," the werewolf said cheerfully. "Since we're trying to track down a werewolf, maybe I can assist you in some way. I understand that you need blood samples?"

"Don't be so quick to volunteer your blood, Lupin," Snape said disapprovingly. "Any number of Dark spells can be used against someone with just a single drop of their blood."

"I'm not sure, but I suspect that I might need Greyback's blood in particular," Henry said. "Not just the blood of a werewolf in general." He explained once more about the ring he had found, and how the ruby had glowed at the touch of his blood.

"Yes, I think you're right," Snape said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, a distracted look in his eyes as he seemed to be searching his memory. "Are you thinking of the research done by Sorensen in his 'Tome of Dark Artifacts'?"

"Yes, and also Armitage's related theories of Blood Magic..."

Henry and Snape got into a lively discussion about various academic texts, one of the best he'd had in a long time. Henry had worked with many renowned scholars in the past, but Severus Snape had the greatest knowledge of Dark Magic of any man or woman he'd ever met, including the staff of Durmstrang. Snape was just offering to lend Henry a particularly rare text from the Snape family's personal library when Lupin coughed--a quiet, polite sound obviously meant to catch their attention.

Henry looked up to see Lupin smiling at them in amusement, while the Aurors were staring at them with impatient (in Shacklebolt's case) or glazed (Tonks and Potter) eyes. "Sorry, I guess we got a little carried away," Henry said with a grin. "But the book that Severus offered to lend me could prove very helpful to my research."

"Just take good care of it," Snape cautioned sternly. "It's one of only five copies left in existence."

"I will, Severus," Henry promised.

"With this type of artifact, it's likely that it needs both the blood of the master and the servant in order to properly bond the two," Snape informed the Aurors didactically, as if he were lecturing his students. "It's possible that it may have already keyed itself to Henry, as a matter of fact, since his blood awakened it from dormancy. However, I would suggest that we do further research before he tries putting it on his finger, lest he lose his finger and possibly his life."

Potter shuddered, and Henry felt the same way. Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to use his own blood to test the ring, after all. He wondered if it was too late to cleanse the ring and re-key it to another master--one of the Aurors, perhaps.

"If that's true, then that means we need Greyback's blood," Potter said. "How can we possibly get hold of that?"

"Do you think that sanatorium where we found Greyback might have some blood samples from him?" Lupin asked Snape.

"Sanatorium?" Henry asked, puzzled.

"It's a long story," Snape replied. "The short version is that the Dark Lord didn't kill Greyback as everyone thought, but instead had him locked up in a sanatorium in Romania." In answer to Lupin, he said, "No, I doubt it. The extent of the medical care that they provide to their patients is simply to drug them into a stupor. I doubt that they'd bother taking blood samples, unless they were selling them to black market apothecaries. Hmm...but that gives me an idea. Greyback bit Bill Weasley, correct?"

"That's right," Shacklebolt replied. "But it was my understanding that Bill did all the bleeding. I'll double-check the report, but I don't think that Greyback left any blood behind at the crime scene."

"But blood all looks the same, werewolf or human, right?" Tonks argued. "And Bill's blood was all over the place. If Greyback had even a tiny cut, spilled even a drop of blood..."

"That's all I would need, a single drop," Henry said. "If Severus and I are correct about our theory, that is. It might not be as effective if it's mixed with someone else's blood, but if that's all we have, I'll do the best I can."

"Has the shop been cleaned up yet?" Lupin asked. "It won't do us any good if all the blood's been scrubbed away."

"I'm not sure, but I don't think so," Harry replied. "Ron said that the twins don't want to open the shop again until Bill is better, and the entire family's been spending most of their time at the hospital. His wounds are still healing very slowly, but he's been doing a little better, Ron says. He's conscious now, and able to talk." He hesitated, then said to Snape, "That mediwizard told the Weasleys that the potions you recommended were a big help, so...thank you for helping Bill, Professor."

Snape just grunted in response, looking rather embarrassed. "I wasn't helping Weasley," he said gruffly. "I just don't want the werewolves to be persecuted if he dies. If the anti-werewolf sanctions are brought back, it would be a bloody inconvenience to have to find a new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor."

Lupin laughed. "But haven't you always coveted that position, Severus? It could be yours for the taking if I'm sacked."

Snape glared at the werewolf. "Experienced Potions Masters are much harder to find than DADA teachers, Lupin," he said haughtily. "The art of potion-brewing requires much more subtlety and skill than a bunch of foolish wand-waving."

Lupin laughed again, and Potter and Tonks were smiling, but Shacklebolt cleared his throat impatiently. "If you two don't mind, could you please debate the virtues of potion-brewing versus spell-casting some other time?"

Snape glowered at the Auror for a moment, then said huffily, "Fine. Getting back to the original subject, yes, I think it would be a good idea to search the shop for traces of Greyback's blood. But what I was actually thinking was that Mr. Kimura mentioned that they took samples of Bill's blood at the hospital."

"How would that help us, Severus?" Tonks wanted to know.

"If they took samples directly from the bite wounds, they should contain some of Greyback's saliva," Snape replied. "Saliva is a bodily fluid, and while it's not quite as effective as blood in Dark spells..."

"It just might work!" Henry finished excitedly. "Blood would be best, of course, but I think that I could manage to make saliva work as a substitute. There's the problem of cross-contamination with Bill Weasley's blood, though...hmm. But I think I might be able to adapt a particular cleaning spell used in archaeological work, and use it to separate the two. I'll have to experiment with it first, of course. And if I'm working with saliva, it might be helpful if I could mix it with another substance from Greyback's body, such as hair or nail clippings."

"I think there were bits of fur at the crime scene!" Tonks exclaimed enthusiastically. "We'd better contact the twins right away and tell them not to clean up the shop until we've had a chance to collect samples!"

"There might be fur on Bill's robes, too," Potter added. "If the St. Mungo's staff didn't throw them away."

"I believe that their policy is to hold onto the patient's belongings, even if damaged or bloodstained," Snape said. "The patient or his family might want them if they have sentimental value, or they might be required as evidence in the case of a crime. Some of the other departments might be a bit lax about such things, but Healer Smethwyck and his staff are very thorough."

"Then we'd best contact St. Mungo's as well," Shacklebolt said. "Thanks for your help, Snape. We really appreciate it." He held out his hand, and Snape looked startled, but shook it.

"As I told Potter, I'm not doing it for your sake, but you're welcome," the Potions Master replied, and Shacklebolt heaved a sigh of resignation.

"At least he said 'You're welcome' this time," Tonks pointed out brightly.

"You should be gracious when someone thanks you, Severus," Lupin scolded.

"I'll head over to Snape Manor and send that book to Henry," Snape said, ignoring both of them. "You do know the proper spells for detecting non-human blood, I hope?"

"Tonks and I do," Shacklebolt replied, keeping his voice level with an obvious effort. "Harry doesn't, but--"

Snape gave Potter a condescending look that seemed to say, "Just as I expected." The boy looked a little irritated, but didn't seem surprised, as if it were a common occurrence. Maybe it was; Snape had always hated Gryffindors in general and Potter's father in particular, and he probably wouldn't show much leniency even to the Savior of the Wizarding World.

"--we haven't covered that part of his Auror training yet," Shacklebolt finished. "He's only been working with us for a few months, after all. But I'm sure that he'll pick it up in no time. He's a very quick study."

Potter smiled proudly, and Snape scowled and said, "Not in my experience, but good luck to you if you think you can manage it."

Shacklebolt scowled back at him, and Henry thought it might be prudent to interrupt and provide a change of subject. "By the way, Severus, I was hoping to consult with Master Tremayne and your son. I'd like them to examine the ring and see if they can make out any runes in this design."

"Good idea," Snape agreed. "I'll talk to Tremayne and have him get in touch with you."

"Please let us know if we can help you with anything else," Lupin said pleasantly, and he and Snape left.

"Merlin, I swear that every time I talk to Snape, I end up wanting to strangle him!" Shacklebolt growled.

"Just be glad that you didn't have to take his classes for seven years," Potter said wryly.

"Oh, Snape has always been difficult, even as a boy," Henry chuckled. "But he is a brilliant scholar."

"And he reminds you of it at every opportunity," Shacklebolt said dourly.

"Well, geniuses often seem to be temperamental in proportion to their talent," Henry said with a shrug.

"You seem to be an amiable sort," Tonks said with a grin. "Surely you're not questioning your talent, are you?"

Henry grinned back at her. "I'm the exception that proves the rule."

*** 

By the time that Greyback met with the Macnair twins, he had almost forgotten about that earlier tingling sensation he had felt. It was probably nothing, just a random twitch or itch brought on by boredom from being cooped up in the safe house. Hunting had proved unsatisfying since the Ministry had issued its curfew, and Greyback was longing for fresh prey.

"We've agreed that it's time for me to challenge the leader of the werewolf pack."

"Yes, but we need to find a way to lure him out to you," Imogen replied, frowning. "You can hardly walk up to the gates of Hogwarts and ask to see him."

"He spends most of his time at the school or at the Diggory mansion," Warren said. "The mansion has fewer wards than Hogwarts, obviously, but the Malfoys and about half of his pack live there with him, and even you couldn't beat all of them single-handedly, Greyback."

"We need to take a hostage," Greyback said. "Someone not as well-guarded, that we can capture without too much trouble. Someone he cares about enough that he'd risk walking into a trap for."

"His pregnant wife would be the obvious choice, but Narcissa hasn't been seen in public for some time," Warren said. "Diggory is very protective of his wife, and I'm sure that he doesn't want to expose her to danger."

"One of the pack children?" Imogen suggested. "He's said to be very fond of the 'cubs,' as he apparently calls them." She smirked and rolled her eyes. "Isn't that cute?"

Greyback snorted in disgust and shook his head. "Cubs! Is he truly the fierce wolf that you've been telling me about?"

"He is," Imogen replied. "He may be infected with a touch of sentimentality, but make no mistake, he is very dangerous."

"Good," Greyback said, undaunted. "It will be nice to have a challenging opponent for a change. And we can use his sentimentality against him."

"The pack has been very cautious since Ash Randolf became a suspect in the murders," Warren said. "The adults have been keeping a low profile, rarely going anywhere except to and from work, and the children haven't been seen in public at all recently. It will be difficult to snatch one of the brats. Greyback would have to break into the Diggory mansion to get at them. One of the girls is a first-year at Hogwarts, but breaking into the school is even more impossible."

"So what do we do?" Greyback growled irritably. 

"We'll have to settle for one of the adults," Warren said. "Some of them live in a London townhouse, which is less secure than the mansion, but you'd still have to fight several werewolves at once. So the best bet would be to take an individual from their workplace. One woman works at Madam Malkin's, another as a maid at the Leaky Cauldron, and a third at the Magical Menagerie in Diagon Alley. There's a former pureblood named Brian Perry who works at a bookstore..."

Warren went through all the information that he'd managed to compile on the werewolf pack until he finally came to the last name on his list. "Ash Randolf works at the Ministry of Magic, of course," Warren sneered. "He and Diggory are supposed to be close friends, and of course I would love to give my dear half-brother a warm welcome into the family, but snatching him from the Ministry might prove a little difficult."

"I think this man Perry is the easiest target," Imogen said thoughtfully. "He was only turned a few years ago, and he was a spoiled rich boy before he became a werewolf. He won't be as good at defending himself as the others."

"But will the pack leader risk himself for a pampered little pureblood?" Greyback asked skeptically. "In a way, your half-brother set this whole thing into motion, beginning with you freeing me from the sanatorium. It only seems appropriate that it should end with him, too."

"Why, that's almost poetic, Greyback," Imogen said with a faint, amused smile.

"I'm a sensitive soul," Greyback replied, grinning mockingly back at her. "Besides, you did want me to kill Randolf eventually, right? Might as well kill two birds with one stone--both your brother and his pack leader."

"Impressive talk," Warren said skeptically, not sounding impressed at all. "But how do you propose to capture Randolf? You can't just waltz into the Ministry and get him."

"Well, he must leave the building once in awhile," Greyback snapped impatiently. "To go out to lunch, or maybe for a drink after work. Haven't your spies told you anything about his habits?"

"Rumor is that he's taken a lover--the new teacher at Hogwarts, the pretty Japanese swordsman who's supposed to be a shapeshifter," Warren replied. "Apparently pretty boy told Dawlish that Randolf would be staying at Hogwarts with him for his own protection. Dawlish didn't like that, because he knows that Dumbledore will protect the werewolf if he tries to arrest him. Anyway, it seems that Randolf goes straight home to his pretty bird at Hogwarts after work every day. And he usually eats lunch in the cafeteria with Shacklebolt, Tonks, and the Boy Who Lived."

Greyback growled in frustration. "There must be a way to get to him!"

"He has a half-sister, but she lives at Hogwarts, too," Warren said. "And he hated his parents, so he might not risk himself for her, anyway, even if we somehow got our hands on her."

"I have it!" Imogen cried triumphantly. "It's so simple; why didn't we think of it before? Randolf works in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts department, so all we need to do is arrange a public sighting of an enchanted Muggle device...something significant enough to catch the Ministry's attention, but not significant enough for them to send more than one or two people. Maybe like the flying lawn mower that got Otto Bagman in trouble? In a fairly remote area, so that the Ministry won't send a squad of Obliviators, and there won't be too many potential witnesses to see you capture Randolf."

"Maybe near a little country village?" Warren suggested. "They'd have to send someone to confiscate the device in case some Muggle farmer spots it, but they won't worry too much about it. If it's a minor incident, Randolf will probably be sent to deal with it alone. The Department Head, Perkins, might accompany him, but he's an old man that Greyback could take with one hand tied behind his back."

"Fine," Greyback said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. "Let's set the bait, and wait for our wolf to walk into the trap."


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ash is lured into a trap by Greyback, and Snape and the others try to figure out how to rescue him.

The "werewolf murders" (as the Daily Prophet had dubbed them) had cast a shadow of fear over the wizarding world, and the public was in a state of near-panic. Tsubasa had even more reason to be worried than the general public, because he knew the specifics of the case: that the former Death Eater Greyback was the culprit, and that he had a magical artifact that allowed him to transform at any time of the month. Not to mention the fact that Tsubasa's new lover, Ash, appeared to be the true target of Greyback's unknown employers, since he had been framed for the murders of his parents.

Yet in spite of all this, he was strangely happy. He enjoyed the evenings that he spent alone in his quarters with Ash, sometimes talking, sometimes making love, and at other times just sitting together quietly and enjoying each other's company. During those moments, he felt as if they were encased in a small cocoon of safety and contentment, where the outside world did not exist.

His warrior instincts, honed by years of training with the tengu, warned him that this was a mistake, that he should not be letting down his guard at a time like this. Hogwarts was heavily warded, so he felt safe enough within the castle, but still, Tsubasa was careful to always keep his swords and wand within reach, even when he and Ash were making love. It was always better to be a little paranoid than a little dead, as one of his former tengu instructors liked to say. 

Tsubasa smiled, thinking to himself that the sharp tongues and beaky noses of his tengu friends reminded him a great deal of Professor Snape. Or maybe it was the other way around, but either way, Snape would fit right in with the tengu flock. If the Potions Master could take Animagus form, Tsubasa wouldn't be surprised at all if he turned out to be a crow. Some of the other teachers disliked Snape, but Tsubasa thought that like the tengu, his heart seemed to be in the right place, despite his abrasive manner.

Ash had resumed his job at the Ministry, and Tsubasa worried for him a little whenever he left the castle, but he was probably almost as safe there as he was at Hogwarts. Even with the stolen artifact, it was unlikely that Greyback would be able to break into the Ministry. A werewolf had no special ability to break through magical wards, and there were too many witches and wizards stationed there to make a frontal attack anything less than suicidal.

Still, although Tsubasa worried, it was convenient to have Ash at work and out of the way, because it gave him time to work on the lover's token he was making. The unique magic of the crane folk enabled them to work with supernatural speed, and they could weave and sew an entire garment in a matter of days, where it would take a normal human weeks or even months.

However, all Tsubasa had to show for his efforts so far was a relatively small length of cloth, of rather shabby workmanship. The silk threads themselves, magically spun from his own feathers, were as soft and fine as any of his clanmates', and of much higher quality than even the finest material made from silkworm cocoons in the human world. However, due to his rather limited (some would say inept) weaving skills, the cloth he had made was filled with little runs and snarls, although he had been working with as much precision and care as possible. He had even unraveled and rewoven the cloth several times, and unfortunately, this was as good as it was ever going to get.

He didn't even have enough cloth yet to make a full-length robe or kimono as he had planned, but he supposed it didn't matter, since the cloth was of such poor quality that he could hardly allow Ash to wear it in public without being ashamed. But there was enough for a shirt, and perhaps Ash could wear it beneath his robes where it wouldn't show. Even if it looked ugly, the silk would still feel soft against his skin, and besides, it was the thought that counted, Tsubasa tried to tell himself, although without much conviction.

He could ask his father to weave Ash a robe of fine quality, of course, but it was the custom of the crane folk to personally weave a garment for their mates, and it was considered the height of poor taste to have someone else do it for you. A lover's token was supposed to be created with one's own hands, weaving one's love and devotion into the cloth along with the threads. Takeshi could get away with skirting that rule since he was mostly human and did not possess the weaving magic, but Tsubasa was a full-blooded crane and it would be shameful for him not to weave Ash's token himself.

Not that he had ever cared what the clan elders thought of him, and Ash wouldn't know about crane customs, but still, it was something that Tsubasa wanted to do for his mate--even though he and Ash had not yet formally exchanged pledges.

Not formally, maybe...but Tsubasa had acknowledged Ash as his mate when he had recklessly plunged into a cave to comfort a grieving--and transformed--werewolf. And Ash had acknowledged Tsubasa as his mate when the wolf had laid its head in Tsubasa's lap instead of ripping his throat out.

So he measured out and cut the cloth into pieces, then began to sew them together, accidentally jabbing his fingers several times with the needle. He absent-mindedly sucked on his bleeding thumb as he wondered when he ought to present Ash with his gift. After Greyback and his cohorts were captured, probably, which Tsubasa hoped would be soon.

*** 

Ash's first few days at Hogwarts were relaxing--or at least as relaxing as things could be under the circumstances, with the murderer still at large. As much as he hated to admit it, he had needed the time to recover from his grief and get to know his half-sister, not to mention begin to build a relationship with Tsubasa. However, after those first few days had passed, Ash began to chafe at the enforced confinement. He wasn't exactly a prisoner at the castle, but everyone from his pack leader on down had made it clear that he shouldn't venture outside school grounds--for his own protection, of course. The only exception that he had been allowed was a single visit to the werewolves' townhouse, directly by Floo, to reassure his packmates that he was all right.

Hogwarts was certainly a much nicer and more spacious prison than a cell at Azkaban, but still, his inner wolf chafed at the idea of enforced confinement, no matter how pleasant. He was also bored; Tsubasa, Lukas, and Laura all had classes during the day, leaving Ash to his own devices. The Headmaster gave him permission to use the school library, and that distracted him for a short time. Books had been a refuge to him as a child, and the sheer amount of books in the school library dazzled him--it was at least a hundred times larger than the little library in his great-aunt's house.

But even Ash couldn't read for hours on end without getting bored, so he would wander around the school restlessly, looking for something to distract him. Even the insults and pranks of the resident poltergeist were a welcome diversion, and the Gryffindor House ghost was friendly and loquacious, and Ash was able to pass some time listening to Nearly Headless Nick's stories about the history of the school, as well as some current gossip about the teachers and students.

He also talked with Lupin a bit, between and after classes. Lupin was apparently writing some sort of textbook on lycanthropy, and was eager to interview as many werewolves as possible. 

"I don't know if this is such a good idea," Ash said doubtfully. "But Lukas told the pack that we could talk to you if we wanted." Ash wasn't at all sure that he wanted to talk about his past, even with another werewolf, but he was bored enough to at least hear Lupin out. Besides, thanks to Rita Skeeter, his past was no longer a secret.

"It's strictly voluntary," Lupin said with a pleasant smile. "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to. But I do think that fear is borne of ignorance, and if people understand us werewolves a little better, perhaps they won't fear us so much."

"They called us heroes after the war," Ash said bitterly. "But I knew it was too good to be true. Look how quickly they turned against us as soon as rumors started about a 'werewolf murder'. It will take more than a book to change human nature."

"Probably," Lupin admitted. "But at least it's a start."

Ash avoided talking about his childhood, and Lupin didn't press him on it, but he did share some stories about his life in the pack after Lukas took him in. The other werewolf smiled a little wistfully as he jotted down notes.

"I felt so alone when I was young--so ashamed and scared," Lupin said. "It would have been nice to have known other werewolves while I was growing up."

"'Nice'?" Ash asked incredulously, then added sharply, "I'm sure that most of the pack would have found it 'nice' to have a family that still loved and protected them after they were turned. I'm sure they would have found it 'nice' to attend Hogwarts instead of stealing and scavenging in order to survive. I'm sure that any one of us would gladly have traded places with you if we could have, Lupin!"

"I wasn't trying to belittle the hardships that you and your pack went through," Lupin said quietly. "I know very well how lucky I was to have had loving, understanding parents, and I wouldn't have traded them for anything. I know I was also very lucky to have had a Headmaster like Dumbledore, who permitted me to attend Hogwarts, and to have made friends at school who didn't care that I was a werewolf. I only meant that I would have felt less lonely and frightened as a child if I had known other werewolves, but I am very grateful for the life I have."

"Sorry," Ash mumbled, feeling a little embarrassed now about losing his temper. He was a little jealous of the relatively easy life Lupin had led, compared to his own and the rest of the pack's, but mostly he was venting his own frustration at being confined on the other werewolf. "I'm a little out of sorts, but it's not your fault."

Lupin smiled sympathetically. "The wolf is restless, isn't it? Or maybe it's not fair to blame it on the wolf; Severus was the same way when he was under house arrest last year and was confined to the castle. He actually doesn't leave Hogwarts very often, except for the holidays, but being told that he couldn't leave drove him crazy. He knew it was all psychological, of course, but the castle felt claustrophobic to him." Lupin's smile turned a little wry. "Actually, he drove me a little crazy as well. Severus isn't one to suffer in silence when he's irritated."

Ash laughed. "No, I didn't think that he was. I can sympathize with him, though. I feel exactly the same way."

"Then maybe you should tell Arthur that you're ready to go back to work," Lupin suggested. "Dawlish knows now that you're not the killer, even though you'll never get an apology out of him. He's focusing all his efforts on finding Greyback."

Ash followed Lupin's advice, and although he wasn't really that fond of his job at the Ministry, he was relieved when Arthur said he could return to work. It turned out that there was actually little for him to do other than investigate a few minor complaints and file paperwork, but even that was preferable to being cooped up in the castle with nothing to do.

With all the hysteria about a possible werewolf serial killer on the loose, the public wasn't interested in frivolities like Muggle toys, and even the smugglers were laying low. Still, Ash was able to at least pretend that he was doing something useful, and he could talk with Kingsley, Tonks, and Harry, who tried to keep him up to date on the investigation--when he could manage to find them, since they were often out of the building trying to track down leads. Even when he could find them, they didn't have much to tell. However, he did at least learn that a scholar friend of Aric's sister was working to help track down the stolen medallion, which presumably would lead them to Greyback.

The only major offense he'd had to deal with so far was a Squib who had bought a gun on the black market. Driven into a terror by the Daily Prophet's inflammatory stories, the Squib had bought the gun for protection because he had no magic to defend himself. Unfortunately, he had only a vague idea of how to use the gun and wasn't very discreet about his target practice. Fortunately, through sheer dumb luck he managed not to kill himself or anyone else, but the Ministry was called in when he accidentally shot out a neighbor's window. Possessing a firearm was a serious offense, and he was arrested, fined, and sentenced to a prison term in Azkaban--but at least he'd be safe from werewolves there, Ash thought a bit sourly.

If they were all lucky, once the killer was caught and the hysteria died down, Arthur would probably take pity on the man and commute his sentence. If they weren't lucky...well, Ash would have a great deal more to worry about than the fate of a single unfortunate Squib. 

So when a new report of a possible Muggle Artifact violation came in, Ash jumped at the chance to relieve his boredom and find a distraction from his worries. 

"...reports of a flying bicycle," the Department Head Perkins was saying.

"A flying what?" Ash asked, not sure that he'd heard right.

"A flying bicycle," Perkins repeated. "So far only one drunken Muggle has witnessed it, and even he chalked that vision up to an excess of alcohol, but we've had a few confirmed sightings by the local wizards, too. Fortunately, the sighting happened out in the countryside, away from the more populated areas, but there is a small mixed Muggle and wizard village located near the sightings. I'd like you to go and nip this in the bud before we have to send in the Obliviators."

"Of course," Ash replied eagerly, happy to have a chance to leave the office. "You don't think it's Otto Bagman again, do you?"

"It does sound like his handiwork, doesn't it?" Perkins laughed. "But no, it can't be him. He's still in prison for that incident with the Porvora that injured Miss Dietrich. It's most likely some young wizard up to a little harmless mischief. I've heard that Arthur Weasley had a similar habit of tinkering with Muggle devices when he was a boy."

"That doesn't surprise me," Ash said with a grin. "All right, I'll go check out this flying bicycle."

"No one goes out on assignment alone," Perkins reminded him. There weren't enough Aurors to run the investigation, let alone escort other Ministry employees, so Arthur had started a "buddy system" as a precaution after the last murder. Personally, Ash didn't think that most of his colleagues would be very useful in a fight, but none of the murders had taken place in broad daylight, so he didn't see any harm in humoring the Minister.

Perkins glanced around the office and his gaze fell on a young wizard working at a nearby desk. "Take Wilson with you," he told Ash.

Hal Wilson instantly jumped to his feet, looking as eager to be gone from the office as Ash. He was a young man with sandy hair and a cheerful smile, and he had recently transferred in from the clerical section because he thought that "working in Muggle Artifacts would be more fun". Like Arthur, he was a pureblood who found Muggle technology fascinating, and also like Arthur, he was a bit too exuberant and idealistic for Ash's tastes. But in his favor, Wilson was good-natured and didn't seem to be afraid of werewolves, so Ash just nodded and accepted the other wizard's company without protest.

They traveled by Floo to the little village and spoke to some of the local wizards. If they recognized Ash from the stories in the Daily Prophet, they didn't say so, although they did gaze at his scarred face nervously. Still, they were polite and answered all his and Wilson's questions as best they could, although their answers weren't especially helpful.

"Do you have any idea who might be responsible for this?" Wilson inquired.

One of the villagers scratched his chin thoughtfully for a moment, then replied, "Well, the Hooper boy is a half-blood, and he has one of those bicycle things, and he is a bit mischievous, but he's away at Hogwarts right now."

None of the other villagers could come up with any suspects, and when Ash and Wilson questioned the Hooper family, they vehemently denied that their son could be involved. "How could he, when he's not even here?" Mrs. Hooper logically pointed out. She even insisted on showing the two Ministry employees that her son's bicycle was securely locked away in a storage shed while he was at school.

Strangely enough, none of the people who'd witnessed the flying bicycle could recall seeing anyone riding it, so they couldn't give a description of the wizard or witch who had enchanted it. They had merely seen it floating in the air, riderless. They could, however, provide a general location for the sightings: the nearby woods located outside the village. The bicycle had been seen skimming over the treetops before descending out of sight into the forest.

Having received directions, Ash and Wilson set off for the woods alone, since none of the villagers seemed inclined to accompany them. Ash was happy enough to leave them behind, because the village reminded him uncomfortably of the one he had grown up in. 

Ash moved through the woods as silently as a real wolf, glancing upwards every so often to keep an eye out for the flying bicycle. Meanwhile, Wilson blundered behind him, making a great deal of noise as he stepped on fallen twigs, brushed past bushes, and pushed aside overhanging branches.

"Will you keep it down?" Ash asked irritably. "We'll never catch the culprit if he can hear us coming from a mile away."

"I can't help it," Wilson argued good-naturedly. "I'm a city boy; I'm not used to hiking through the forest. You certainly move stealthily enough, though. Is that a werewolf thing?"

"Of course not," Ash replied curtly. "Most of my packmates are city-bred, and they'd probably be just as noisy as you. I used to play in the woods a lot when I was a kid, that's all."

"Really?" Wilson asked curiously. "I never pegged you for a country boy."

Ash shot an annoyed look at him and growled, "My stepfather was a farmer. Don't you read the Daily Prophet?"

"I never read that trash," Wilson said contemptuously, and Ash laughed in spite of himself.

"You know, you're not such a bad sort after all, Wilson."

"Of course not. Oh, look--there it is!" Wilson pointed up, and Ash saw a glint of light filtering through the leaves above them--the sun reflecting off the metal frame of a bicycle.

They hurried after the bicycle, no longer concerned about being quiet, trying to keep it in sight without stumbling on the roots and brush underfoot. The bicycle moved at a slow and steady pace, though, and they were in no danger of losing it, even when they paused to glance down to keep their footing. Eventually they caught up with it when it descended into a small clearing.

"Hello?" Wilson called out. "We're from the Ministry." When there was no reply, he added, "There's no point in hiding; we know you're here. You needn't be scared; for a first offense, you'll only get a warning and a small fine. In fact, that's quite a clever charm you put on the bicycle. I'd like to talk to you about it if I may. Hello?"

It suddenly occurred to Ash that this had all been just a little too easy, that it almost seemed like the bike had been deliberately leading them here. His body tensed as the wolf sensed danger, and he reached for his wand as his head swiveled around, eyes searching for the wizard who was controlling the bike.

"Be careful, Wilson," he said in a low growl. "This may be a trap."

Wilson turned towards Ash, startled, but before he could reply, a voice above them shouted, "Sectumsempra!" 

Ash cried out in pain and dropped his wand as the spell tore open his hand, nearly cutting it in two. He had no time to dwell on the pain, however, because immediately after he was hit by what felt like at least two hundred pounds of dead weight as a man dropped out of a tree directly on top of him with a howl of maniacal glee.

No...not a man, at least not entirely. His body was human, but his face was that of a gray-furred wolf with a mouth full of long, yellowish fangs. Its breath was hot and rank on Ash's face, and for one terror-stricken moment, he was transported back to the werewolf attack that had turned him when he was twelve years old.

"Ash!" Wilson cried. His face was white with fear, but he stood his ground and drew his wand--a brave move, but not necessarily a smart one. The werewolf--who must be Greyback--lashed out with a long, muscular, fur-covered arm and knocked Wilson off his feet before he could get a single spell off, sending him flying backwards into a nearby tree, which the back of his head hit with a solid "thunk!" 

Wilson moaned and his body slumped down to the ground and lay still. Ash had no time to wonder whether the young man was dead or just unconscious, because he was too busy struggling and gasping beneath Greyback's weight, trying to catch his breath, which had been knocked out of him when the werewolf had dropped on him. 

"So you're the wolf who's been giving my Lady so much trouble," Greyback said, his jaw dropping in the wolfish equivalent of a grin. "You don't look like much to me; you're barely more than a cub." He leaned in closer and whispered, "Your mummy and daddy were very tasty, boy. I wonder if you'll taste as good as them?" And he ran his tongue across Ash's cheek. 

Ash snarled in disgust and spat in Greyback's face. He struggled with renewed fervor, ignoring the pain in his wounded hand as he kicked, punched, and clawed at Greyback, fighting to break free.

The other werewolf grunted as one of Ash's blows connected solidly, but it didn't seem to affect him much. "You're a feisty one," he growled, sounding more amused than angry. Then without warning, he lashed out with one hand and ripped open the right side of Ash's face with his talons. "Now both sides of your face match!" Greyback laughed, his eyes glittering with sadistic pleasure as Ash howled in pain. "It's a pity that it won't leave a scar since you're a werewolf--assuming you live long enough for it to heal, that is."

In his hybrid state, Greyback had the advantage of teeth and claws in addition to his superior weight and strength. There was no way that Ash would be able to beat him in human form without his wand, so he gave in to the fear and anger rising within him, trying to encourage the wolf to emerge so that he could transform.

_Goddamnit,_ Ash snarled silently to himself. _It figures that the one time I actually want to lose control to the wolf, I can't do it!_

Then Greyback opened his jaws wide and clamped them around Ash's neck, and suddenly he had no problem summoning up the wolf as a wave of terror washed over him. Reacting instinctively to a life-and-death threat, his body transformed, and Ash was so caught up in his fear that he barely noticed the usual pain of his flesh and bones twisting and breaking and reshaping themselves. 

However, with Greyback's jaws locked around his throat, Ash was unable to bite his attacker, and he was still pinned beneath Greyback's half-human body, which was larger and heavier than Ash's wolf form. He desperately clawed at the other werewolf, and he felt cloth tearing and flesh giving way beneath his talons, but Greyback still would not let go. If anything, his jaws clamped down tighter, pressing against Ash's windpipe and cutting off the flow of air. He could also feel Greyback's fangs beginning to push through the thick ruff of fur around his wolf-self's neck and pierce into flesh, but as he struggled for breath, Ash realized that he might very well suffocate before he had a chance to bleed to death.

_I'm going to die,_ Ash thought frantically, filled with despair as he realized how much unfinished business he had left in his life. _I never told Tsubasa that I love him...I think, or at least I hope he knows that I do, but...I've never actually said the words to him. And Laura...she'll be all alone if die; what will happen to her? Maybe Lukas will take her into the pack for my sake..._

He thought of his pack leader, who had taken him off the streets and given him a home. His surrogate father and brother and friend all in one, who had saved him as a child, and now he was going to squander the gift Lukas had given to him because he had been stupid and careless enough to walk into Greyback's trap. He knew that his pack leader would mourn for him, but at least he now had a wife and baby to comfort him. 

_I'm so sorry that I won't be able to see your son, Lukas..._ was Ash's last thought before everything faded to black.

*** 

Hal Wilson was half-conscious and vaguely aware of the struggle between the strange werewolf and Ash, and he knew that he needed to go to his companion's aid, but his body would not cooperate when he tried to move. He was afraid at first that he might be paralyzed, that he had hit the tree hard enough to snap his neck, but he felt his fingertips twitch slightly, so he was probably just stunned.

Not that he wouldn't be dead soon enough, unless he could summon up enough strength to get up and grab his wand. Or at least Apparate out of here--but he couldn't just leave Ash behind to be killed. On the other hand, Hal wasn't trained in combative magic; he was a clerk, not an Auror, so he wouldn't be much help in fighting the wolf-man. But if he could Apparate to the Ministry quickly enough, maybe he could bring the Aurors back in time to save Ash...

The point turned out to be moot in the end. Hal watched in horror as the brown wolf who was Ash stopped struggling and went limp between the wolf-man's jaws. The werewolf released Ash's body, then scooped him up with one arm, holding the large wolf as easily as if it were a puppy. 

Then the werewolf walked over to where Hal lay and wrapped his free hand around Hal's throat. _That's it; I'm dead,_ Hal thought. He might have wet himself in terror if he hadn't still been dazed from the blow to his head.

Lifting him by the neck, the werewolf hauled Hal up until their faces were level. His hand gripped Hal's throat tightly, and he struggled to breathe as the monster growled, "The only reason I'm leaving you alive is that I need you to take a message to someone for me."

"Who?" Hal wheezed.

"Cyril Diggory, the leader of the werewolf pack," the werewolf replied. "Tell him that Greyback is challenging him, and that we are to fight in single combat for leadership of the pack. He is to come and meet me alone, no Aurors, or I will kill his dear friend Ash."

That must mean Ash was still alive! Hal glanced over at Ash, and while his body was limp and unconscious, he could see now that the wolf was breathing shallowly, his sides rising and falling slightly with each breath.

"Where should he meet you?" Hal gasped.

"I'll send him the time and place later," Greyback said, then he dropped Hal and Disapparated.

The first thing Hal did was breathe in deeply, his lungs burning from lack of air. When he was no longer in danger of fainting (although his neck was still throbbing painfully where Greyback had grabbed him), he paused to consider what he should do. On one hand, his duty as a Ministry employee was no doubt to report this to the Aurors immediately. On the other hand, while Greyback hadn't explicitly said not to tell anyone other than Diggory about the attack, he had threatened to kill Ash if the Aurors got involved, and Hal didn't want to take any chances.

Hal couldn't really call Ash a friend; the werewolf was civil to him, but a bit standoffish. Still, he couldn't blame Ash for being wary, considering how most of the people at the Ministry treated him like an outcast, and Hal admired the way Ash didn't seem to care what anyone thought of him. And he envied Ash's roguish good looks a little. Many of the young women at the Ministry sneered about "the werewolf" in public, but Hal often caught them giving Ash admiring glances when they thought no one was looking. No matter how much women claimed that they wanted a "nice guy," they always seemed to be attracted to the bad boy types, Hal thought wistfully. Then again, rumor had it that Ash wasn't interested in women, and was currently living with a handsome male teacher at Hogwarts.

Anyway, although he and Ash weren't close, Hal liked him, and he didn't want to put his coworker in jeopardy. He just didn't know what to do. Even if he did want to keep the kidnapping a secret, how would he explain Ash's disappearance at the office without arousing suspicion?

Finally he decided that it was too much for him to handle alone. He knew and trusted Kingsley Shacklebolt, so Hal decided to confide in the Auror and hope that he would be discreet. Feeling a little better for having made a decision, Hal Apparated back to London.

*** 

Fortunately, Dawlish wasn't in the Aurors' office when Hal Wilson walked in, looking bruised and disheveled, or things would have gotten more complicated than they already were. Once Kingsley heard Wilson's story, he brought in Harry and Tonks. Wilson was worried about Ash's safety and reluctant to share his story with too many people, but it was fairly easy to persuade the young man to put his faith in the Boy Who Lived. As much as Harry disliked his fame, it did come in handy sometimes. The three Aurors conferred briefly, and after a bit of debate, decided that they needed to include Arthur. He was the Minister, after all, and moreover, he considered Ash a friend.

Arthur decided that they needed to talk to Lukas as soon as possible, so they all headed over to Hogwarts. They consulted with the Headmaster, who then called Lukas, Snape, Lupin, and Tsubasa into his office.

"So many people," Wilson said nervously, eyeing the small crowd. "If word gets out..."

"It won't be through one of us," Snape said coldly, and Wilson paled slightly. It was not so many years ago that he had been a student at Hogwarts, and very few of Snape's students ever completely got over their fear of him even after leaving school.

"I didn't mean you, Professor," Wilson mumbled, wilting under the Potions Master's glare.

"We all worked together in the Order of the Phoenix, except for Professor Tsubasa," Tonks said, kindly but firmly. "We've trusted each other with our lives in the past; we can all keep a secret, and none of us would ever betray the other's trust."

Still cowed, Wilson said nothing, but his eyes flickered over to Tsubasa, who said solemnly, "Ash is my mate. I would never do anything to jeopardize his safety."

"Oh," Wilson said, his eyes widening. "So for once the office gossip was right!"

"Worry about the gossip later, Mr. Wilson!" Snape snapped acerbically. "What we need right now is to know exactly what happened today."

"Yes, sir," Wilson said meekly, and explained the day's events as best he could, starting with the report about the flying bicycle.

Lukas snarled with rage when he heard how Greyback had attacked Ash, but before he had a chance to speak, Snape turned on Arthur and shouted, "What the hell were you thinking, sending Randolf out on assignments, particularly to remote locations! We knew that he was the ultimate target of Greyback and his employers!"

Arthur flinched and protested, "But Greyback has always attacked late at night, when there are no witnesses around. I thought it would be safe enough to let Ash handle a few routine investigations during broad daylight. And we've set up a buddy system at the Ministry, so that no one goes out alone."

"Oh, and that worked out very well," Snape said sarcastically, with a pointed glance at Wilson, who wilted further. 

"But Severus, I thought you knew that Ash had gone back to work, and you didn't say anything at the time," Lupin pointed out reasonably. 

"I thought he was just working in the office," Snape grumbled. "I didn't expect that he'd be running all over England on his own." Another glance at Wilson. "Or as good as."

"I was worried about Ash going back to work," Tsubasa admitted. "But like Professor Snape, I thought he was just working in the office, so I didn't try to stop him."

Lupin smiled slightly at his lover. "It's nice to know that you're concerned about Ash, Severus."

This time Snape turned his glare on Lupin, who gazed calmly back at him, unperturbed. "This is about more than just Randolf, Lupin, and you know it!" he barked. "This is about the danger of the werewolves' rights being taken away, and the possibility that the Death Eaters could regain a foothold in the wizarding world!"

"Well, right now all I care about is Ash!" Lukas growled, looking rather offended at the way Snape had so lightly brushed aside the concerns about Ash.

"Excuse me," Dumbledore said mildly, stepping between the two angry men. "I think it would be best to put aside our quarrels for the moment and focus on getting Mr. Randolf back safely, don't you?"

"True," Lukas conceded, his anger fading, and Snape nodded curtly.

"Let us go back over the attack again, Mr. Wilson," the Potions Master ordered. "What exactly did Greyback say? Did he give any clue as to whom he was working for or where he was taking Randolf?"

"I'm sorry, sir," Wilson said miserably. "I got knocked against the tree, and I was only half-conscious. I remember hearing him talking to Ash--more like growling, really--but I can't remember his exact words, just the tone of his voice. He seemed more amused than angry, like a cat toying with a mouse. I didn't really come to until he grabbed me and gave me the message for Mr. Diggory. His exact words were..." 

He frowned, wrinkling his brow in concentration, then said slowly, "'Tell him that Greyback is challenging him, and that we are to fight in single combat for leadership of the pack. He is to come and meet me alone, no Aurors, or I will kill his dear friend Ash.' And he said that he would send a message about where and when to meet later."

"You must remember something!" Lukas shouted in frustration. "Think harder!" The pack leader advanced on Wilson, baring his teeth in a threatening snarl, and the young man took a few hasty steps back. 

"I've tried; honestly, I have!" Wilson protested. "I want to help Ash just as much as you do, but--"

"I seriously doubt that," Lukas growled, but Lupin placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to both calm him and hold him back from attacking Wilson.

"He may not be as close to Ash as you are, but I'm sure that he doesn't want any harm to come to Ash," Lupin said gently. "It's not his fault that he was nearly unconscious during the attack, and yelling at him isn't going to help him remember."

"'Nearly' unconscious," Snape murmured to himself, frowning thoughtfully. "Actually, Mr. Wilson might be able to help us, after all."

"He might?" Lukas asked eagerly.

"I might?" Wilson asked, a bit more doubtfully. 

"You said that you were dazed by the blow to your head, but you did not completely lose consciousness, is that correct?" Snape asked briskly, with none of his former hostility.

"Yes, that's right, Professor," Wilson confirmed. "But like I said, I don't remember what Greyback said...or rather, I couldn't make out his actual words."

"Your conscious mind does not remember," Snape said didactically, as if lecturing in the classroom. "However, the subconscious picks up a great deal more detail than the conscious mind is aware of."

"Maybe, but how does that help us?" Wilson asked in confusion.

"Gryffindors," Snape sighed to himself, then asked impatiently, "Have you ever heard of Legilimency, Mr. Wilson?"

"Um, I think it's something to do with mind-reading?" Wilson asked hesitantly, with the air of a student expecting to be chided for his ignorance.

"That is a somewhat simplified and inaccurate description, but I don't have time to explain it in detail," Snape replied, a bit condescendingly. "So yes, in essence, mind-reading. I can use Legilimency to retrieve your memory of the attack, and it should give us a more accurate picture of what happened."

Wilson looked a bit apprehensive about having Snape in his mind, and Arthur said, "We won't force you to do this, Hal," although Lukas looked as though he might object to that statement. "However," Arthur continued, "if you are willing, it would be a great help, and your memories might hold the key to rescuing Ash."

"Then I don't see how I can object," Hal said. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, then turned to face Snape. "All right," he said with an air of forced bravery. "I'm ready, sir. What should I do?"

"Albus, I'll need your Pensieve," Snape told the Headmaster, who immediately went to fetch the item from a cupboard. Meanwhile, Snape turned back to Wilson and said, "Try to relax. This will be easier if you remain calm and try not to fight me. And if you can try to concentrate on your memory of the attack and bring it to the forefront of your mind, that will help things go quicker and more smoothly."

Wilson took another deep breath, exhaling slowly, then closed his eyes and said, "Yes, sir."

Snape took out his wand and silently cast the spell, then entered his former student's mind. He felt Wilson mentally flinch, automatically resisting the intrusion in spite of his good intentions, a normal instinctive reaction for someone undergoing the process for the first time. Snape could simply have ripped open Wilson's mind as he had the Romanian sanatorium director's, but doing so could cause permanent mental damage to the victim, and Arthur would probably be upset if Snape accidentally turned the boy into a vegetable. And Snape did grudgingly accord the young Gryffindor a small degree of respect for voluntarily agreeing to let the dreaded Potions Master into his mind, so he gently eased his way past Wilson's mental barriers instead of just tearing them down.

After a few moments, Wilson calmed slightly, and although he was still nervous, he made an obvious effort to relax and not fight Snape, who found the memory of Greyback's attack easily enough. Wilson was concentrating intently on it, as Snape had instructed, and it helped that the memory was still fresh and vivid in his mind, having occurred so recently.

"I have found the memory, Mr. Wilson," Snape said, in a much more soothing tone than he normally used with his former students--well, with anyone other than Lupin and his sons, actually. But extracting the memory would be a delicate process, and he didn't want anything to go awry if Wilson started to panic. "I am going to temporarily remove it and put it into the Pensieve so that we may all observe the memory more closely. It will not hurt, and when I am done, I will restore the memory to your mind. I promise that you will suffer no harm from the procedure."

"O...okay, Professor," Wilson said gamely, still nervous but determined. "What should I do?"

"Nothing," Snape replied. "Just remain calm; I will handle everything else. Now, I am going to place my wand against your temple. Do not be alarmed." He slowly drew out a long, silvery strand from Wilson's head and deposited it in the Pensieve.

When he was done, Wilson shook his head slightly and said, "Hmm, I don't feel any different."

"I told you that you would take no harm from it," Snape replied irritably. 

"I know, but I thought maybe my head would feel, well, empty or something," Wilson said sheepishly.

"In that case, you should feel no different, since all Gryffindors tend to be empty-headed," Snape retorted, more out of habit than anything else.

"Never mind that now!" Lukas snapped impatiently, and for once, Snape didn't argue.

"Very well, let us examine Mr. Wilson's memory."

They gathered around the Pensieve and took turns immersing themselves in the memory, since there were too many of them to all use the Pensieve at once. After they'd all had a chance to examine the memory, Snape restored it back to Wilson's head and frowned, tracing his lips with one finger as he often did when he was lost in thought.

"Wow!" Wilson exclaimed. "I had no idea I could remember so much without being aware of it."

Lukas's eyes were gleaming with a combination of murderous intent and frustration. Greyback was obviously the one he wanted to hurt, but he looked as though he might settle for anyone within close reach. Wilson cautiously backed away from him, and even the Aurors gave him a wide berth.

"But this doesn't really help us!" Lukas growled. "We didn't learn anything about where Greyback took Ash."

"We did learn that he's working for a woman," Harry said hopefully. "He said that Ash was giving 'my Lady' trouble."

"He doesn't say her name, though," Tonks said. "Do you think it might be Imogen Macnair, Severus? I know that you don't want to suspect your former students, but..."

Snape sighed, looking weary and resigned. "The pureblood elite are a bit sexist, as I'm sure most of you have noticed. There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part, the main role of a pureblood woman is to marry and provide heirs to carry on the family name. Most of the Death Eaters were men, and out of all the female Death Eaters, only Bellatrix Lestrange and Alecto Carrow were truly active participants. The others, like Narcissa, were wives who took the Mark mainly as a show of support to their husbands' cause. They attended important Death Eater ceremonies and meetings, but did not take part in the raids and murders. 

"Whoever freed Greyback from the sanatorium must have a close connection to the Death Eaters, or they would not have known his location, or even that he was still alive. Bellatrix is dead and Alecto is in prison. And obviously, Delia Avery and Narcissa are not suspects. Out of all the women who are close relatives of the Death Eaters, there are very few who would have the inclination to actively take part in a scheme like this, and even fewer who would be strong enough, both magically and emotionally, to exert control over Greyback."

Snape paused for dramatic effect, and both Kingsley and Lukas glared at him impatiently. "For Merlin's sake, will you just get on with it, Snape?" the werewolf leader snapped.

"On the surface, Imogen Macnair is a very proper young pureblood woman," Snape continued coolly, as if he had not heard the interruption. "She always publicly defers to her father and brother, and never behaves in a manner that is even remotely unladylike. However, she is intelligent and skilled in the Dark Arts, and moreover, she is very strong-willed. After observing the twins closely during their several years at Hogwarts, and on a few social occasions outside of school, I would guess that Imogen is the dominant twin." 

A small, wry smile crossed Snape's lips. "I doubt that Warren is consciously aware of it, but he almost always follows his sister's lead and heeds her advice, although she is subtle enough that it isn't obvious to outsiders. Which isn't to say that Warren isn't a capable wizard in his own right, because he is. But notice that Greyback refers to 'my Lady,' not 'my Lord,' which implies that the 'Lady' is the one in charge. Since this is a memory, I cannot sense any of Greyback's emotions, and must judge only by his tone of voice and facial expressions, but I believe that there was some sincere respect in his words, which is significant, because in the old days, Greyback had little use for females other than...er...bedding them.

"The twins are capable mages, though young and untested, but together, I believe that they are skilled enough to have freed Greyback and kept him under control, at least temporarily, although I doubt that they will be able to keep him on a leash indefinitely. And in my opinion, Imogen is the only female suspect we have who is capable of controlling him and winning his respect. So in conclusion, I must reluctantly agree that the culprits are most likely Imogen and Warren."

"You couldn't have just said, 'It's the Macnairs'?" Kingsley asked in an exasperated voice. "Never mind--don't answer that; I know we don't have time to argue. Arthur, I'll need an arrest warrant to bring the Macnairs in."

Arthur looked unhappy. "We still have no hard evidence pointing towards the Macnairs..."

"Snape knows the Death Eaters and their families and allies better than anyone else," Kingsley said. "I may not like him, but I respect his expertise in this matter. If he says the Macnairs are guilty, then that's evidence enough for me!"

"It's not that I doubt your word, Severus," Arthur told the Potions Master. "But I've been trying to be fair and apply the same rules to everyone--and that includes my enemies as well as my friends."

"Are you going to let Ash get killed because you refuse to bend the rules a little?" Lukas demanded. "Do you think that the Macnairs and Greyback are going to play by your goddamned rules?!"

"As Minister of Magic, you do have the authority to use your own discretion in cases of emergency," Snape said sharply. "And if this doesn't count as an emergency, I don't know what does. You must decide which is more important to you, Weasley: your idealism or Randolf's life."

Arthur sighed wearily and said, "I will draw up the warrant immediately."

As the Ministry workers prepared to leave, Lukas cried, "Wait! What about Ash? What am I supposed to do?"

"We'll let you know as soon as we find out anything useful," Arthur promised. "Hopefully, we'll be able to get Ash's location--and Greyback's--from the Macnairs."

Kingsley looked determined, but not nearly so optimistic. "Stay put in case Greyback contacts you." Then his eyes narrowed and he gave the werewolf leader a stern look. "And I'm sure that I don't need to tell you not to go running off on your own if you do get a message from him. They're obviously setting up a trap for you."

"Obviously," Lukas snarled, but he didn't respond to Kingsley's warning--something that didn't escape the Auror's notice.

"I mean it, Diggory," Kingsley insisted. "No matter what Greyback said about not bringing in any Aurors, you can't go running off to play hero by yourself--"

"Like a Gryffindor," Snape muttered under his breath.

"--or you'll wind up getting the both of you killed," Kingsley finished. "Understand?"

"Yes," Lukas replied sullenly.

"We care about Ash, too," Tonks said kindly. "We'll use every precaution to conceal our presence from Greyback, if it comes to that."

"We can use my Invisibility Cloak," Harry offered.

"Hopefully, we can get the Macnairs to give up Greyback's hiding place, and catch him off-guard and ambush him when he's not expecting it," Tonks continued.

"I want to be a part of any attack on Greyback," Lukas said adamantly.

Kingsley hesitated, then said, "We'll discuss it after we interrogate the Macnairs."

"In the meantime, I'll contact Henry Bletchley and see if he's found a way to use that ring yet," Snape said. 

"Good idea, Severus; thanks," Tonks with sincere gratitude, and Snape just grunted in reply.

Tsubasa had remained quiet throughout most of the discussion, and his face was impassive, almost emotionless, except for a faint glint in his eyes--just a hint of the frustration that was mirrored in Lukas's.

"Well, I guess I'll go sharpen my sword," he finally said. "If I'm lucky, I'll get a chance to use it on Greyback."

"Not if I get to him first," Lukas said, but he gave the crane man a fierce but comradely grin and clapped him on the shoulder.

*** 

However, the curator who had been a friend of the twins' mother noticed the Aurors arriving, and quietly passed word of it to Imogen, who correctly sensed that they were not here for just another harmless interrogation session. She immediately fled and sent a warning to her brother.

Once the Aurors realized that Imogen was missing, they rushed over to the Macnair mansion, but it was too late. By the time they succeeded in breaking down the protective wards guarding the estate, Warren was long gone.

*** 

Ash woke in pain to the sound of arguing voices. He felt bruised and battered, and his neck was stiff and sore, his throat throbbing with a dull, persistent ache. He tried to recall what had happened, then remembered the sensation of Greyback's jaws crushing his throat. He wondered for a moment if he was dead and this was the afterlife, but he hadn't thought that being dead could hurt so much. Then again, what did he know about death? For all he knew, this was some kind of purgatory.

"...should have killed that little Ministry clerk!" a man's voice was shouting. "He must be the one who sent the Aurors after us!"

"I never mentioned your name or my Lady's!" a familiar deep, rumbling voice protested--it was unmistakably Greyback's. "It's not because of me that the Aurors were set on you!"

"Oh, and I suppose it was just a coincidence that they came after us right after you grabbed Randolf?" the man asked sarcastically.

"It might be that Arthur Weasley has finally abandoned his idealism in the interest of self-preservation, and issued an arrest warrant even though there is no solid evidence against us," a woman's voice interjected calmly. 

"I handled things as I saw fit!" Greyback said defensively. "The boy was helpless as a puppy; no challenge to me as prey at all. It was hardly worth my while to kill him, and we needed someone to carry word to Diggory. Besides, leaving one survivor to spread word of an attack has always been an acceptable Death Eater tactic, to inspire fear in the wizarding world."

"That is true," the woman said coolly. "But the Death Eaters were many, and we are but few. It might have been wiser to kill the witness and simply send a letter to Diggory."

"You see?" the man sneered triumphantly. "Next time leave the thinking to us, and don't try getting creative!"

"Then next time be more specific about your orders!" Greyback retorted.

"However," the woman added in a sharp voice, obviously running out of patience with both speakers, "we cannot reverse the past, and fighting with each other is not productive. We must salvage what we can from the situation at hand. The Aurors came to arrest us, Warren, so however it happened, they know we are guilty. We have no choice now but to throw in our lot with Greyback."

"I swear, my Lady, with a werewolf army I will quickly restore you to power!" Greyback exclaimed, with more earnestness than Ash would have expected from the sadistic former Death Eater. He had never met Greyback before this, but a few of his older pack brothers and sisters had been turned by him, and the stories they told of him were all horrific. It was said that he hated humans and regarded them as inferior, so he didn't seem like the type who would pledge to serve a human "Lady".

Ash turned his head in the direction of the voices to get a look at his captors. He was in a dark, torchlit room, but he could make out a young man and woman who appeared to be in their early twenties. They both had dark hair and a strong facial resemblance, so Ash assumed that these must be the Macnair twins that Shacklebolt had been suspecting all along. Greyback was there as well, of course, although he now looked fully human.

He tried to move, then realized that he was bound: there were silver shackles locked around his neck, wrists, and ankles, all attached to silver chains that were wrapped tightly around his body, binding his legs together and his arms against his torso. There was no way he would be able to stand unassisted, let alone walk or run; at most, he could wriggle along the floor like a worm. 

Although it was usually safe for werewolves to handle silver when they were human, it would burn them painfully in wolf form, and for a few particularly sensitive individuals, prolonged skin contact even in human form could cause a rash. Most werewolves tended to avoid it altogether out of superstition, because of all the legends about silver being poisonous to lycanthropes. Maybe it was because the chains had been put on him while he had still been a wolf, or perhaps he had a sensitivity that he had been unaware of, but his wrists and neck chafed and itched where the silver touched his skin directly, although it didn't seem to affect the parts of his body that were clothed.

The wolf hated being bound, and its instinctive reaction was to struggle, even though Ash's human mind knew that it was useless. He strained against his bonds, but they would not give, and if anything, grew even tighter, the silver collar around his neck constricting and making it painful to breathe.

The rattle of the chains caused his trio of captors to turn in his direction. "Ah, the puppy is awake," the woman...Imogen Macnair...said casually.

The man, who must be her brother Warren, moved closer and looked down at Ash, frowning critically. "He doesn't look like much," he said scornfully. "Can he really be related to us?"

"To be fair, it's difficult to make out any family resemblance with all that blood on his face," Imogen said coolly, and Ash realized that there was a thick layer of dried blood caked on his right cheek where Greyback had slashed him. It no longer hurt, though, so it must have healed. He glanced down at his right hand, which was also bloody from the spell Greyback had used to disarm him, and he tentatively flexed it. It still hurt a little, but his flesh had fused together and the bleeding had stopped, so the wound had mostly healed.

"Scourgify!" Imogen said, and Ash felt a painful sensation, like steel pads scouring his skin. But a few moments later, his face was clean and free of blood, although it felt as though he had been scrubbed nearly raw.

"Hello, dear brother," Imogen said mockingly. "We finally have a chance to welcome you to the family."

Ash found that when he stopped struggling, the chains and shackles slackened slightly, at least enough to allow him to breathe easily again. "Why?" he croaked in a hoarse voice. "Why have you gone through all this trouble, to kill my parents and frame me for murder? I was no threat to you; I never knew who my real father was."

"The mere fact that you exist is reason enough," Imogen replied with a cool indifference that was somehow more disturbing than Greyback's sadism. "We could not permit your polluted blood to stain the Macnair honor, even unwittingly."

"And of course, we could not take the chance that your mother might someday reveal your true identity to the world," Warren added. His hatred, at least, was obvious; scorn and anger colored both his face and his voice. 

"Rosalind would never have done that," Ash said bitterly. "She was as ashamed of me as you are--even more, perhaps."

"It doesn't matter," Warren declared. "We cannot allow Macnair blood to exist in a beast! Besides, getting rid of you was only half the reason for the murders. The other half was to stir up fear and make people realize just how foolish Dumbledore's and Weasley's idealistic, bleeding-heart ways are. To make them realize that a stronger hand is needed to keep order in the wizarding world."

"The pack will never follow you!" Ash snarled defiantly at Greyback. "Not that you could ever beat Lukas in the first place!"

"Oh, I think I can, and I think they will," Greyback said with a nasty grin. "It will break their spirit when I show up with your dear pack leader's head on a pike. He was the one who created the pack by sheer force of will and kept you together all these years. It will all fall apart when he dies, and I will be there to pick up the pieces."

"You can't beat Lukas," Ash repeated. "He'll send you running off with your tail between your legs!"

"I beat you easily enough," Greyback taunted, and Ash flushed.

"Only because you caught me by surprise," he snarled. "Lukas will be more careful, and anyway, he's stronger than me--stronger than any wolf in the pack!"

"Ah, but is he stronger than me?" Greyback asked with a smirk. He kicked Ash hard in the side, and Ash cried out in pain as he felt his ribs crack. Then Greyback knelt down and grabbed Ash's head and began slowly twisting it to one side, his long, yellowish fingernails digging into Ash's face hard enough to break the skin. Ash tried to resist, but he was hampered by the chains and was no match for the other werewolf's strength. In another moment or two, if Greyback did not let up, he would snap Ash's neck, and the wolf whimpered in fear.

At that involuntary sound, Greyback's eyes lit up in triumph, and Ash realized to his horror and shame that his inner wolf had submitted to Greyback, if only for a brief moment. He almost wished that Greyback would kill him then, but Imogen said, "We need him alive, Greyback, at least for now. But you can do whatever you want with him after you kill Diggory."

"Yes, my Lady," Greyback replied meekly enough, but his eyes were still silently gloating as he released Ash.

_Lukas will beat him,_ Ash tried to tell himself, but a seed of doubt had taken root in his mind. Greyback was incredibly strong in his hybrid form, possibly--just possibly--stronger than a transformed Lukas. Of course, physical strength did not count for everything; Lukas was surely much more clever than that crude beast. 

But even if Lukas was a match for Greyback one-on-one, Ash knew that the former Death Eater would not fight fair; the Macnairs would surely be ready to back their pet werewolf up if it looked like he was losing. Ash tried to tell himself that Lukas wouldn't walk blindly into an obvious trap, but he knew that his pack leader would never abandon one of his wolves, not even if it meant risking his own life. Hopefully Lukas would at least get Tonks and Shacklebolt or Snape and Lupin to back him up, but Ash was terribly afraid that his stubborn and loyal friend would not take the risk that Greyback would carry out his threat to kill the hostage if he didn't show up alone.

His despair must have shown on his face, because Greyback and the Macnairs laughed at him mockingly. He almost welcomed the pain when Warren and Greyback began casting Cruciatus Curses on him to amuse themselves, because at least it distracted him from his fear that he might end up being the cause of his pack leader's death. Eventually, Imogen called her two cohorts away, saying that they still had work to do, and Ash lapsed almost gratefully back into unconsciousness.

*** 

"What do you mean, they got away?!" Lukas shouted.

"I'm sorry," Tonks apologized, looking rather shamefaced. "It seems that one of the curators is a friend of the family, and she saw us arrive and told Imogen about it. Imogen must have realized that we were on to her and Warren, and she fled before we could arrest her."

"And she must have warned her brother, because he was gone by the time we arrived at the Macnair mansion," Harry added. "They had a lot of wards and traps set up, and it took us time to disarm them all."

"Well, what about this curator?" Snape asked. "I assume that you interrogated her. Do you think that she's involved with Macnairs' plot?"

"No," Kingsley replied disgustedly, shaking his head. "She claims that she was just trying to prevent the evil Aurors from persecuting poor little Imogen, and unfortunately, I believe her. She seems to think of Imogen as a delicate little flower of a girl who would never get involved with anything so scandalous as murder and werewolves."

"It seems to be an image that she's cultivated," Snape said dryly. "Even Bletchley was shocked when I told him that Imogen was most likely involved with the murders. He had actually felt sorry for her because she only got her job out of pity--a favor from the same curator you mentioned, as a matter of fact. He said that she seemed meek and cowed, almost beaten down by the scorn of the wizarding world." Snape snorted derisively. "Obviously he doesn't know her as well as I do, or he would know that she would never be cowed by anyone short of the Dark Lord and possibly her father, but as I mentioned before, she's good at behaving like a 'proper' pureblood girl, and I doubt that many people see beyond that facade."

"You botched the arrest!" Lukas snarled, grabbing Kingsley by the front of his robes and shaking him. "What do you intend to do about getting Ash back?!"

"Take it easy, Lukas," Lupin urged, trying to calm his friend down and pull him away from Kingsley. "I know you're upset, but this isn't helping."

Lukas snarled again, changing the focus of his anger to Lupin, which caused Snape to frown and take a step forward as he reached for his wand. However, Tsubasa interceded before any blood could be spilt.

"Remus is right," he said quietly. "This isn't helping. You won't be able to go and rescue Ash if you're locked up in a prison cell for attacking an Auror, or lying in a hospital bed because Professor Snape hexed you for threatening his mate." Snape flushed slightly and glared at Tsubasa, who didn't seem to notice--or at least, discreetly pretended not to. "However," he continued, turning towards Kingsley, "Lukas does raise a valid point. What are you--we--going to do?"

Kingsley sighed, straightening his robes. "We did a brief search of the mansion, but didn't find any obvious clues as to the Macnairs' whereabouts. Doing a thorough search could take days, even weeks, which we obviously don't have. You know the Macnairs best of anyone here, Snape. Do you have any idea where they might hide? Any family or friends they might go to for help?"

Snape frowned and slowly shook his head. "Not in England, no. Their relatives and so-called family friends have been keeping their distance ever since Walden was sentenced to Azkaban. I believe that his late wife's family owns a summer cottage in the Cotswolds, which would be uninhabited at the moment, so it's a remote possibility that they might have fled there, but I seriously doubt it. It's much more likely that Walden has a safe house or refuge that he set up in case of emergencies; many of the Death Eaters did, but such locations are usually kept secret from anyone but their immediately families. Walden and I weren't close, and he never confided in me about a safe house. The only other possibility I can think of is Warren's mentor in Romania. He seems to have some loyalty towards the Macnairs, and he isn't bound by the laws of the British Ministry."

"Greyback's message makes it sound like they're still in England, though," Harry objected. "Surely he wouldn't expect Master Diggory to travel all the way to Romania for their fight, would he?"

"I didn't say that I thought the Macnairs were in Romania, Potter," Snape replied testily. "I only mentioned it as a possibility, however remote. The most likely scenario is that they are still here in England, hidden in the hypothetical safe house that I mentioned."

"Yes, but we still need to follow up all possible leads," Tonks said soothingly. "And since we don't know where the safe house is, we'll have to start with the summer cottage and Warren's mentor."

"We have no jurisdiction in Romania, but I'll notify the Romanian Ministry that the Macnairs are fugitives and might seek refuge there," Kingsley said. "Whether they'll actually follow up on it is anyone's guess, but since it's such a remote possibility, I don't want to waste time actually traveling to Romania unless we find some real evidence indicating that they went there."

"Bill is still in the hospital, but his condition is stable," Tonks said. "We could ask Charlie if he's willing to go back to Romania and keep an eye on things there. We don't have to mention Ash, just tell him that we suspect the Macnairs."

"Good idea," Kingsley said with an approving nod.

Lukas's eyes were still filled with a combination of agonized frustration and helplessness. "Isn't there anything else we can do?" he pleaded.

"I have spoken to Henry Bletchley," Snape replied coolly, with just a touch of sympathy in his eyes, unnoticeable to anyone except those who knew him very well. "He has not yet completed his research on the ring, but he has learned enough that he is willing to attempt to use it to locate Greyback. However, he needs to make a few magical preparations first."

"Damn it, we can't afford to waste time!" Lukas growled. "We can't trust a couple of would-be Death Eaters or a maniac like Greyback to keep their word! What if they decide to kill Ash before they contact me? What if they decide to just cut their losses and run to Romania?"

"Bletchley is working with Dark Magic, which can backfire fatally upon the wizard using it if not handled properly," Snape said sharply, with less patience this time. "He is already taking a substantial risk in working with an unknown Dark artifact that has not been thoroughly tested. Just be grateful that he is willing to help us at all."

"Everyone is doing their best, Lukas, though I know it doesn't seem like enough," Lupin said sympathetically, patting his friend on the shoulder.

"I know, I know," Lukas sighed wearily. "Sorry, Snape. I appreciate your friend's help; I just hope that it doesn't come too late to save Ash."

Snape nodded, looking mollified. "Bletchley should be here within the half-hour, according to his estimates; he understands the need for urgency and is working as fast as he safely can."

"Thanks," Lukas said gruffly. "I'll go wait in my office before I bite anyone's head off, figuratively or literally. You'll call me as soon as you find out anything?"

"Of course," Lupin replied, and the other werewolf left the room.

Kingsley gazed after Lukas, a worried look in his eyes. "I've set a monitor on the Owl Post and the Floo Network; I still don't trust him not to go off on his own." 

"Hopefully he won't do anything foolish, but we'll try to keep an eye on him," Dumbledore said, while Snape muttered something under his breath about stubborn werewolves.

"All right, then, we'll be off," Kingsley said. "Let us know when Bletchley arrives, if we're not back here by then."

*** 

Lukas was pacing back and forth in his office restlessly when a tentative tap on the door caused him to lunge forward and yank the door open.

"Did you hear anything--?" he started to demand, expecting Lupin or one of the Aurors, but instead he found Laura Madley standing outside his door. The girl jumped slightly, startled by the intensity in his voice and eyes. 

"Oh, it's you, Miss Madley," Lukas said, trying not to sound too disgruntled. "What can I do for you? Aren't you supposed to be in class?"

"It's lunchtime," she replied, smiling up at him nervously. "Er...is something wrong, sir? Physical Defense class was canceled, and so was Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"I can't really talk about it, Miss Madley, but everything's under control," Lukas replied gruffly, trying to sound more reassuring than he felt. "We're assisting the Aurors with a little project."

"Oh, I see," Laura said solemnly, probably assuming that they were helping with the murder investigation--which was true, in a manner of speaking. "Is Ash helping, too?" she asked innocently.

"No, he's at work right now," Lukas lied, praying that they'd be able to rescue Ash before Laura found out that her brother was missing. He decided that he'd better send the girl on her way before she started asking too many questions that he couldn't answer. "I don't mean to be rude, Miss Madley, but I'm a little busy right now..."

"Oh yes, of course, sir!" Laura said hastily. "I didn't mean to bother you, honestly, but for some reason, I received this package by owl with a note that says to give it to you."

"For me?" Lukas asked, his heart suddenly beating faster. This must be the message from Greyback! That damned Shacklebolt probably didn't trust him, and was watching to see if he received any owl deliveries. Greyback--or more likely, the Macnairs--had probably guessed that the Aurors would monitor the mail, and had decided to send the message to him indirectly.

"Yes, sir," Laura replied, handing him a small parcel. "It was addressed to you, so I didn't open it, of course, but I don't understand why it was sent to me instead of you."

"Ah yes," Lukas said, thinking quickly. "I was expecting a package from a friend. It's a surprise gift for my wife, you see, so I didn't want it sent to my home in case she found it. So I told him to send it to the school, but it seems that my friend went a little more cloak-and-dagger than was really necessary, but he does love spy novels. He probably decided that it would be clever to send it to me indirectly, and he must have chosen you because you're the sister of my pack brother."

"Oh, I see," Laura said politely, although she still looked confused. Well, it wasn't a very convincing story, but it was the best he could come up with on the spot. And fortunately, Laura was too naive to be suspicious of his story, or perhaps just too well-behaved to call her teacher a liar.

"Thank you, Miss Madley," Lukas said, feigning an unconcerned smile. "Now you'd best get to the Great Hall before you miss lunch."

"Yes, sir," Laura said obediently, and ran off down the hall, although she did cast one last puzzled glance at him before she left.

Lukas was about to close the door when he noticed an oversized pair of bat-like ears sticking out from behind the statue of some famous, long-dead wizard, one of several that decorated the corridor. He shut the door, pretending not to notice, but silently cursed the Headmaster. Dumbledore must have set one of the house-elves--probably Dobby--to make sure that he didn't sneak out of the castle, which probably meant that the Floo was being monitored, too. Damn the meddling old wizard! He wasn't sure if he should go after Ash alone, but he wanted to at least have the option open to him.

Well, first things first; he'd read the message and then decide what he should do. He unwrapped the parcel and found that it contained a roll of parchment and a small velvet pouch. Setting the pouch aside for the moment, he unrolled the parchment, which read, "The pouch contains a Portkey that will transport you to the site of our duel. It will transport only one person, so do not think to bring the Aurors or anyone else with you. Even if your friends find a way to follow you, we will kill Ash Randolf at the first sign of trickery." The letter wasn't signed, but that was hardly necessary, since it was obvious who must have sent it.

Lukas carefully opened the pouch and spilled its contents onto his desk without touching them. A small gray stone etched with runes tumbled onto the desk; that must be the Portkey. But his heart nearly stopped at the sight of the second object, a lock of brown hair tied with a ribbon--and the hair was matted with dried blood.

"I will personally rip your throat out, Greyback," Lukas growled in a low voice. He hesitated for a moment; he knew that Shacklebolt was right and that this was undoubtedly a trap that Greyback and the Macnairs had set for him. He knew that it would be stupid to go in blindly without reinforcements. He knew that he should immediately notify the Headmaster and the Aurors and everyone else.

But...this was his pack brother's life on the line. Long before he had met Dumbledore or Shacklebolt or any of the others, he had sworn an oath to protect his pack. They were his responsibility. And while he loved every member of his pack, Ash was especially dear to him. He still remembered the scruffy, soot-covered boy he had met in an inn in Knockturn Alley--so young and frightened and alone, yet stubborn and defiant at the same time. Even as a cub, he'd had a wolf's fierce heart.

He couldn't take the risk that they would kill Ash if he brought in the Aurors. Besides, if the letter was telling the truth, only one person could use the Portkey, anyway. He was confident that he could defeat Greyback, and less confident that he could defeat the Macnairs, but if nothing else, maybe he could at least buy enough time for the others to find them and finish the job. 

He had better hurry; who knew whether or not Dobby would think to report to Dumbledore that he'd received a package from a student? He wrote a brief note to Lupin, then wrapped his fingers around the stone.

*** 

Lupin had some food sent to his and Severus's quarters for lunch, but when he asked the house-elves, they told him that Lukas had not requested a meal--as Lupin had suspected. So he ordered an extra tray of food and set off to force his friend to eat, in spite of his lover's grumblings that "the werewolf can take of himself" and "it won't kill him to miss one meal". Lupin grinned to himself; Severus didn't like it when he fussed over anyone but Severus; it was really rather sweet, in a way. Lupin's inner wolf was possessive of its mate, so he didn't mind, and in fact rather liked that his mate was possessive of him as well.

He reached the corridor where Lukas's office located, and knocked on the door. When there was no response, Lupin called out, "Lukas? It's me; I've brought you some lunch. I know that you're worried about Ash, but you need to eat and keep your strength up, especially if you're going to fight Greyback." He figured that was the one argument that would get through to the stubborn pack leader, but there was still no answer. Lupin banged on the door again, a bit harder this time, and shouted, "Lukas? Are you in there?"

He saw a pair of large, pointed ears twitch behind a nearby statue, and he turned to ask, "Dobby? Did Lukas leave his quarters?"

The house-elf stepped out from behind the statue and shook his head vigorously. "Oh no, Dobby was told to notify the Headmaster right away if Master Diggory left his office, and Master Diggory did not." He paused for a moment, then added hesitantly, "But..."

"But?" Lupin prompted gently.

"But a girl knocked on the door, and Master Diggory opened it," Dobby replied, then added hastily, "But Master Diggory did not leave! Dobby would have told the Headmaster if he did. Master Diggory spoke to the girl, then went back inside."

"A girl?" Lupin asked, having a bad feeling about all this. "You mean a student? What did she want?"

"Master Diggory called the girl 'Miss Madley,'" Dobby answered promptly. "Miss Madley brought a package for Master Diggory. A gift for Master Diggory's wife, but it was sent to Miss Madley instead because it was supposed to be a surprise." The house-elf shook his head in confusion and admitted, "Dobby did not really understand, but Master Diggory did not leave." He saw the look of dismay on Lupin's face and asked anxiously, "Did Dobby do something bad?"

Lupin attempted to smile reassuringly and told the house-elf, "No, not at all. You did exactly what you were supposed to. But now I need you to go to the Headmaster and tell him what you told me."

"Er, but Dobby..."

"Don't worry, I'll watch over Lukas while you're gone," Lupin told him, and the house-elf vanished. Once he was gone, Lupin tried the knob of the office door, and it turned without any resistance. He stepped inside, noticing that the room was obviously empty, but an alarm should have been triggered in Dumbledore's office if Lukas had attempted to use the Floo.

Then Lupin saw the parchment and lock of bloody hair on the desk. Beside them was a note that read:

*** 

Lupin,

Tell Shacklebolt and Tonks sorry, but I've gone on ahead alone. I can't risk Ash's life, and only one person can use the Portkey, anyway--and I intend that one person to be me. If anything happens to me, please look after Narcissa and Cedric Drake.

Lukas

*** 

"Lukas, you idiot," Lupin groaned, but he wasn't sure that he wouldn't have done the same thing if it had been Dylan or Theo who had been kidnapped instead of Ash. 


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry helps Snape and the others find Ash, while Lukas confronts Greyback.

"Idiot werewolf," Snape grumbled, but he wasn't really surprised that the pack leader had sneaked off on his own; he had been half-expecting it, in spite of the precautions that Dumbledore and the Aurors had set in place. 

The former Lukas Bleddri might have officially transformed into Cyril Diggory, head of the Diggory family and teacher at Hogwarts, but beneath that veneer of social respectability, he was still a feral wolf at heart. Arthur, Tonks, and Lupin tended to think of Lukas as a fellow Order member, albeit an unofficial one, because he had fought on their side in the final battle, but he hadn't fought for the sake of the Order or even the wizarding world in general. He had fought for revenge, because Voldemort had murdered one of his pack members. His true loyalty would always lie with his pack, not Hogwarts or the Order or the Ministry.

Shacklebolt, being a bit more cynical than his violet-haired partner, had been the one to insist on monitoring Lukas, but in spite of his best efforts, the werewolf had still managed to escape. Of course, setting a house-elf to guard a werewolf hadn't exactly been the most brilliant of plans, but in fairness to the Auror, that had been Dumbledore's idea, not Shacklebolt's. 

The monitoring of the Floo Network, while it had seemed a sensible precaution at the time, turned out to have been useless, and in fact, nearly tipped off Dawlish to the situation. As soon as he found out, he contacted Dumbledore and demanded to know why the school Floos were being monitored, and why it had been done without his authorization. 

One small piece of luck in their favor was that Henry Bletchley had arrived almost immediately after Lukas had fled, although it remained to be seen how useful he would be. Henry requested the use of one of the dungeon workrooms, where any unexpected side effects of the spells he planned to use could be contained--a request which did not exactly inspire confidence, although he assured Snape that it was "just a precaution".

Shacklebolt, Tonks, and Potter were recalled from their search, and soon convened together in the dungeon with Snape, Lupin, Tsubasa, and Henry; the Headmaster was currently at the Ministry, attempting to allay Dawlish's suspicions.

"I just knew he would try something like this!" Shacklebolt complained when Lupin explained what Lukas had done.

"Well, he shouldn't have run off like that," Potter said, looking a little guilty--probably because he had pulled similar stunts in the past. At least the boy was now Shacklebolt's problem and not Snape's. "But the note says that only one person can use the Portkey, so none of us could have gone with him, anyway."

"First of all, the Macnairs could have been lying about the Portkey only being able to transport one person because they wanted him to come alone," Snape informed his former student impatiently. "And even it was true, we could still have placed a tracking spell on Diggory if he had warned us ahead of time." Potter just gave him a blank look in reply. "Honestly, Shacklebolt, haven't you taught the boy anything?" Snape asked waspishly, more to bait the Auror than out of any real belief that Shacklebolt's training methods were lacking.

"He's only been working with us for a few months!" Shacklebolt snapped, while Tonks and Lupin both sighed and rolled their eyes, managing to look amused and irritated at the same time. "We hadn't got around to covering that yet! Tracking spells are advanced magic and Auror training normally takes three years--as you well know, Snape!"

"A tracking spell would have enabled us to monitor Lukas and Apparate to his location, at least in theory," Tonks patiently explained to Potter. "The spell becomes unreliable over long distances--for example, if the Portkey took him to Romania. And it won't work in Unplottable areas. But still, if Lukas had let us use the spell on him, we would've at least had a chance of tracking him and coming to his aid."

"He might have been afraid that you wouldn't allow him to use the Portkey, that one of you Aurors would insist on going in his place," Tsubasa said. "The werewolves don't seem to place a great deal of trust in authority, although I suppose you can hardly blame them."

"You're remarkably calm, under the circumstances," Tonks marveled. "Considering that it's your, er, mate who has been kidnapped."

Tsubasa shrugged. "Going into hysterics would hardly help the situation, now would it? Of course I'm anxious, but I've been trained to remain calm under pressure. Also...I'm reasonably sure that Ash is still alive. The crane folk can sense when their mates die, even if they're separated by distance. It might be different for us, since Ash is a wolf, but I still think I would know if..." His voice faltered for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure. "If anything happened to him. Maybe it would have reassured Lukas if I had told him that, but then again, maybe not. Knowing that Ash is alive doesn't tell me where he is, or how to get to him before Greyback and the Macnairs kill him."

"Well, I might be able to help with that, although I can't guarantee any results," Henry said. "But I do believe that I have found the proper spells to forge a link between the ring and the medallion, or more accurately, between myself and Greyback."

He reached into his briefcase and brought out the ring and a couple of small vials, laying them down on a sturdy wooden table that was the only piece of furniture in the room, aside from a few wooden chairs. The surface of the table was marred slightly by blackened spots and shallow scratches--the remains of past experiments gone awry. Snape noticed that his fellow Slytherin's face was pale and his hands shook slightly as he worked.

"You don't need to do this personally, Henry," Snape told him. "You could leave it to the Aurors. It is their job, after all, and this could be dangerous."

"Snape is right," Shacklebolt said, agreeing with Snape for once. "We appreciate your help, Professor Bletchley, but there is no need for you to take any risks. As the Auror in charge, it ought to be me who uses the ring, if you can tell me what to do."

Somewhat to Snape's surprise, Henry shook his head. He had always been a practical sort in school--not cowardly, but not one to stick his neck out unnecessarily, either. "Unfortunately, I already inadvertently keyed the ring to myself when I used my blood to test it," Henry explained. "The connection between the ring and medallion has already been weakened by the fact that neither I nor Greyback are the original owners of the items. Attempting to re-key the ring to someone else might weaken the connection further, to the point where it would be useless to us. If I could go back in time, I would do things differently, but as it is...I must be the one who wields the ring."

"Well then, we appreciate your help, Professor," Shacklebolt said, gazing at the scholar with a newfound respect, and Henry nodded in acknowledgment, looking a little less pale.

"Why are you doing this, Henry?" Snape asked, too quietly for anyone but Lupin, with his keen werewolf senses, to overhear.

"To tell you the truth, Severus, I really don't know myself," Henry laughed, his eyes filled with a strange mixture of fear and confusion and exhilaration. "Let's just say that I'm doing it for the sake of scholarly ambition. If I can pull this off, my reputation in the academic world will be made."

"Assuming you survive," Snape said dryly.

"Reassuring as always, Severus," Henry said lightly. "But I'll trust you to publish my research posthumously if I'm killed in the line of duty, so my reputation will still live on. Besides, while there is some danger inherent in using a Dark artifact, I don't really expect this to be a fatal experience."

"I hope not," Snape said.

"Now then," Henry said in a brisk, professional voice as he unstoppered one vial and the others gathered closer to watch him work. "This is a solution made by combining my own blood with the dried blood I found on the ring. Hopefully, using some of the original owner's blood will help strengthen my own bond to the ring." He carefully poured a few drops onto the ring while passing his wand over it, and the ruby glowed bright red for a moment before returning to normal.

Henry opened the second vial. "This is a solution made from Greyback's saliva, obtained from the samples taken at St. Mungo's from Bill Weasley's wound, as well as some fur and a drop of blood that Ms. Tonks and Mr. Potter found at the Weasleys' shop. I would have preferred to have more of the subject's blood, but I believe that this will be sufficient to forge a link between myself and Greyback."

"Oh!" Lupin suddenly exclaimed. "Why didn't I think of it before? There might be some of Greyback's blood at the site where he attacked Ash! Ash turned into a wolf and bit and clawed Greyback, and some of it might have spilled on the ground!"

"You're right," Snape admitted, chagrined that he hadn't thought of it sooner. "But to go there now and search for it might take more time than we can spare." He glanced at Henry for confirmation.

"It would take time to gather the blood and mix a new solution," Henry agreed. "It might also prove difficult, maybe even impossible to separate Mr. Randolf's blood from Greyback's, if both men were in wolf form at the time."

"How long would it take to make the new solution, assuming we can find Greyback's blood?" Shacklebolt asked.

"Perhaps an hour," Henry replied. "It's not just a matter of pouring raw blood on the ring. There are certain herbs that must be added and spells that must be cast in order for the binding to work properly. In essence, it's rather like brewing a potion, in which the blood is just one ingredient, although a crucial one."

"We can't spare the time," Shacklebolt decided. "Randolf and Diggory might both be dead by then. If you think your spells will work, please proceed as planned, Professor."

"Very well," Henry said, pouring the second solution on the ring and passing his wand over it as he had done the first time, and once again, the ruby glowed briefly. He then chanted a singsong incantation that Snape didn't understand--it might have been Gaelic--and tiny runes cleverly hidden in the vine pattern carved on the band of ring began to light up one by one. When he finished the incantation, Henry took a deep breath, then slipped the ring onto his finger and it lit up in a blaze of red light that filled the room.

The others in the room barely had time to gasp in surprise before the light faded away a heartbeat or two later, leaving what appeared to be a perfectly normal if somewhat ornate gold and ruby ring on Henry's finger.

"Well, it seems to have worked," Henry said shakily, gazing down at his hand, which trembled slightly. "Since the ring hasn't killed me, I assume that it has accepted me as its new owner."

"Would it really have killed you if the...er...binding didn't work properly?" Potter asked, his eyes wide with both horror and fascination.

"Probably not," Henry replied. "The most likely possibility is that it would have remained dormant, nothing more than a pretty piece of jewelry. Still, with Dark artifacts, one can never be sure about possible side effects and hidden traps." He smiled at Snape. "I owe your son and Master Tremayne a debt of gratitude, Severus. There were able to make out the runes hidden in the decorative pattern on the band, which turned out to be the activation command for the ring."

"Then I will be sure to pass along your thanks, and ours as well--when this is all over," Snape said. "But for now, what should our next step be? How much control do you think the ring will grant you over Greyback? Can you pinpoint his location, perhaps even summon him to you?"

"I don't know if my mastery of the ring is strong enough to actually summon Greyback," Henry replied. "I am willing to try, but we would probably have to make the attempt somewhere outside of Hogwarts because of the anti-Apparition wards on the school. However, I am reasonably certain that I can at least use the ring to determine Greyback's general location."

"Then let's attempt that first," Shacklebolt suggested. "I assume you can do that here?"

Henry nodded and reached into his briefcase again, pulling out a map of Britain, which he spread out on the table. "I had this drawn up in ink that was mixed with the same solution that I just used on the ring, the one that contained Greyback's saliva and blood. It's a bit crude compared to the copper map from the Prince's tower, but I didn't have time for anything fancy, and this should suffice for our purposes."

Shacklebolt nodded impatiently at the explanation, while Snape suppressed his own impatience. Like most scholars, Henry liked to explain his work in detail, but he was already nervous, and snapping at him to hurry up would only unsettle him further--and it generally wasn't a good idea to have a jittery wizard using an untested Dark artifact. At least the lecture seemed to be helping Henry to calm himself, with the added side benefit of educating Mr. Potter, who was paying a great deal more attention than he used to in Snape's Potions classes.

Snape stole a glance at Tsubasa out of the corner of his eye. The crane man certainly had more right than any of them to be impatient, but he remained preternaturally calm and still, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes focused on Henry intently, but without any outward sign of impatience or hostility. Snape was mildly impressed; if it had been Lupin instead of Randolf in Greyback's clutches, he doubted that he would have been able to remain so composed.

Mercifully, Henry kept his lecture short and turned his attention back to the map, passing his hand slowly back and forth above it as he murmured, "Show me my servant, the one linked by blood to this ring."

His hand halted in midair with a sudden jerk, as if some unseen force had forcibly stopped it, and the ruby flared to life again, glowing with a steady light.

"Here," Henry said, pointing to a spot on the map. "He's somewhere in Norfolk."

"Ah, that makes sense," Snape said, leaning over to take a closer look. "It's the perfect place for a Slytherin to hide a safe house."

"What's so special about Norfolk?" Potter asked in a puzzled voice. 

"It's full of fens, Potter," Snape replied impatiently.

"So?" Potter asked, still completely oblivious.

Snape rolled his eyes at his former student's ignorance, although he should be used to it by now. "Didn't you ever pay any attention to the Sorting Hat's song while you were at Hogwarts, Potter?"

The boy flushed, looking annoyed and embarrassed. "I remember it singing about the different Houses, and in fifth and sixth year it said that all the Houses had to unite, but I don't remember anything about Norfolk or fens..."

Lupin smiled kindly and sang:

"A thousand years or more ago  
when I was newly sewn,  
there lived four wizards of renown,  
whose names are still well known:  
bold Gryffindor, from wild moor,  
fair Ravenclaw, from glen,  
sweet Hufflepuff, from valley broad,  
shrewd Slytherin, from fen."

"Oh," Potter said sheepishly. "I guess I forgot about that."

"The information can also be found in 'Hogwarts, a History,'" Snape couldn't resist adding. "But I suppose you didn't pay attention in History class, either."

"Well, to be fair, Professor Binns puts most of his students to sleep," Tonks said reasonably.

Tsubasa cleared his throat to get their attention, still managing to keep up a remarkably polite demeanor under the circumstances, and Snape felt a hint of guilt as he realized that he was wasting time by baiting Potter, although in his defense, the boy practically invited it.

"So you're saying that it's natural for a Slytherin family to seek shelter in the land that the Founder of their House hailed from?" Tsubasa asked. 

"Exactly," Snape replied. "And beyond its symbolic significance, it's also a practical choice, because not many people care to build homes in swampland, so the Macnairs need not worry about nosy neighbors discovering their secret."

"Can you narrow down the location any further than that?" Shacklebolt asked Henry. "It's still a fairly large area to search."

"No, I'm sorry," Henry replied regretfully.

"It's still more information than we had before, and I thank you for your efforts, Professor Bletchley," Tsubasa said graciously.

"Still, we need to find Lukas and Ash quickly," Tonks said, frowning. "You said you were willing to try summoning Greyback?"

"Yes, but as I said, we'll need to do it away from Hogwarts."

The same idea simultaneously occurred to Snape, Lupin, and Potter, and they chorused, "The Shrieking Shack!"

Shacklebolt looked startled, but nodded approvingly. "It's near the school, but isolated, and we need not endanger anyone else. I wouldn't really feel comfortable about summoning a murderous werewolf into a school filled with children, even if it weren't for the anti-Apparition wards."

They hurried over to the Shrieking Shack, where Snape and Lupin drew a protective circle on the living room floor--a precaution Henry requested, in order to confine Greyback on the chance that he actually managed to summon the werewolf directly to them. Snape had readily agreed that it wasn't a good idea to bring an unrestrained werewolf into their midst.

In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Lupin smiled at Snape nostalgically as they worked. "It's almost like old times, isn't it, Severus?" he asked. "This reminds me of when we were partners in Branwen's class."

Snape had been thinking the same thing, but he would never admit it in public, so he replied gruffly, "Shut up and get back to work, Lupin," ignoring the fact that Lupin had never actually stopped working. The werewolf tended to run off at the mouth at times, but he was perfectly capable of multitasking. However, Lupin didn't point this out, and obediently fell silent, although not before giving Snape an insolent grin and a wink.

They quickly finished the circle and activated the wards, then moved out of the way as Henry stepped forward. The circle should hold Greyback if the summoning worked, but Snape drew his wand, not wanting to leave anything to chance, and he noticed Lupin and the Aurors doing the same. Tsubasa did not reach for his wand, but instead laid his right hand on the hilt of his sword. 

"Servant of the ring, bound to thy master by blood and magic, I summon thee," Henry intoned in a clear, ringing voice as he stretched his hand out towards the circle, showing a far more commanding presence than Snape had ever seen in the mild-mannered scholar before. "As master of the ring, I command thee to appear before me, Fenrir Greyback!"

The ring nearly exploded with light, filling the entire room with a crimson glow. The magical aura in the room was palpable, causing the hair on the back of Snape's neck to stand up on end, and he could tell by the expressions on the faces of the others that they felt the same way. Potter's eyes were as round as saucers, and Snape suspected his face would be pale if it hadn't been washed in red by the light from the ring, but the boy stood his ground firmly, wand raised and poised to attack if necessary, and Snape gave him a grudging nod of respect. Perhaps he had matured a bit, after all--but then, as annoying and insolent as Potter could be, Snape had to admit that the young Gryffindor had never lacked in courage, only in intelligence and common sense.

As for Henry, his outstretched hand trembled and he swayed in place, as if fighting an unseen force, but his face was set in an expression of grim determination.

It seemed to take an eternity, but it was probably only a minute or two later when both the magical aura and the red glow vanished, and Henry staggered backwards, losing his balance. Snape managed to catch him before he fell, and Henry clung to Snape's arm, gasping, "I'm sorry. I almost had him for a moment, but then I lost him. His will was very strong, and I guess my bond to the ring wasn't strong enough to command him. I'm sorry."

Tsubasa looked disappointed, but he said, "You did your best; no one can ask for more. And at least we have a general location for their safe house."

Henry looked down at his ring, which was still glowing faintly. "I think I can do better than that," he said, sounding a little more hopeful. He regained his balance and straightened up, releasing his grip on Snape. "The connection to Greyback is still there, although it's faint. It's difficult to put into words, but I have a sense of where he is, and I believe that I can Apparate to him, although I don't know his exact location."

"It sounds something like the magic that the Dark Lord used to summon his Death Eaters," Snape said, touching his left forearm. "The Dark Mark enabled us to Apparate to his side even when we didn't know where he was. I'm sure that I don't need to tell you that Apparating blindly is dangerous, though."

Henry nodded, looking pale and grave. "I know, but...we don't have much time, do we? If we don't get to him right away, your friends will die, and in the larger scheme of things, Greyback and the Macnairs could escape, which in turn would alter the political structure of the wizarding world. I don't normally play politics, but I'm not unaware of the fact that Arthur Weasley's career is riding on Greyback's capture. And I rather like things the way they are now. War drains resources; in peacetime there is more funding available for scholarly research. And since Weasley wants to promote friendship and unity with other countries, he has been generous about funding grants for collaborative research projects with foreign allies--like the one in Egypt that I was participating in before I was recalled home by my family."

"I see," Lupin said, smiling faintly. "So you are acting purely out of self-interest, to preserve the status quo. Very Slytherin of you."

Henry flushed, and Tonks smiled and said, "Don't tease him, Remus. We're grateful for your help, Henry, whatever the reasons."

"Yes, well, now we'll have to decide who is going with me," Henry said, still looking flustered. "Obviously, I'm the only one who can find Greyback, and it's not safe to perform side-along Apparition with more than two people. More than that, and people tend to leave pieces of themselves behind..."

"Well then, the answer is obvious," Shacklebolt declared. "As the two senior Aurors present, Tonks and I should go."

"'Obvious'?" Snape asked coolly. "You may be Aurors, but I am more familiar with the Macnairs and Greyback, and in dealing with Dark Magic. I know their strengths and weaknesses." Besides the necessity of capturing Greyback, he also felt an obligation to protect Henry, because he was the one who had gotten his former housemate involved in this mess. Henry was a scholar, not trained in combative magic, and Snape didn't quite trust the Aurors to put a Slytherin's welfare ahead of their mission to capture Greyback and the Macnairs. 

"And Ash is my mate!" Tsubasa interjected, his calm demeanor slipping a little. "I would say that gives me a right to be there!"

"But Severus is my mate, and if he is putting himself in danger, then I want to be by his side," Lupin said, his blue eyes flashing with a stubborn glint.

"Maybe we should draw straws?" Tonks suggested in an attempt at levity that fell flat.

Her partner gave her an impatient look before turning to address Tsubasa and Lupin. "I understand how you feel, but there is more at stake here than just your personal feelings," Shacklebolt said. "The Macnairs and Greyback are a threat to the entire wizarding world."

"I am not unsympathetic, but my first concern is Ash," Tsubasa said firmly, giving the Auror a cold and piercing stare. "The wizarding world has plenty of people to look after it. There ought to be at least one person in the rescue party who cares about Ash as an individual."

"That's how Lukas was thinking, and that's why we're in this mess right now!" Shacklebolt snapped. "Damn it, Professor, it's not like I'm trying to be cold-hearted, but we have to be sensible about this. Tonks and I are Aurors; we're trained to deal with Dark Wizards, and forgive me, but I know nothing about your capabilities."

"I've fought Dark Wizards in my homeland," Tsubasa argued.

"As a Ministry representative, I still can't sit back and let three civilians go off into combat without an Auror present!"

"I may not work for the Ministry, but I would hardly consider myself a 'civilian,'" Snape said dryly. 

"You know I didn't mean it that way, Snape!" Shacklebolt exclaimed in frustration. "I know as well as anyone what you did for the Order!"

"Um, excuse me," Potter ventured hesitantly. "But we need to get to Ash and Master Diggory as soon as possible, and it doesn't seem like we're going to settle this argument anytime soon. So since Professor Bletchley is the one who's going to be doing the Apparating, maybe he should decide who he'll take with him?"

Everyone stopped arguing to stare at the boy, and Snape conceded, "A surprisingly sensible suggestion, Potter."

"Very well," Shacklebolt sighed reluctantly. "But please keep in mind that we Aurors have been trained to deal with situations like these." And because time was of the essence, Snape refrained from pointing out that the Aurors had never had to deal with a werewolf who could transform at will before.

Henry looked uncomfortable about being put on the spot, but he said, "I want to take Severus with me. He knows more about Dark Magic than anyone else here, and I'd feel safer with a fellow Slytherin by my side." Perhaps he didn't quite trust the Aurors, either. "As for the second person..." He hesitated, then decided, "Mr. Shacklebolt is probably right that an Auror should be present, and he's experienced in combat, having fought for the Order in both wars." Lupin and Tsubasa looked particularly unhappy about this decision, and Henry added, "I'm sorry, but I'll return for the rest of you after I drop off Severus and Mr. Shacklebolt. Believe me, I have no desire to stay and fight, and I'm more than willing to leave that up to you lot."

For a moment, Tsubasa looked as if he were about to argue, possibly even force Henry to take him at swordpoint, but then he nodded resignedly. "It is a logical decision, to choose the two wizards with the most combat experience. I respectfully request that you take me on the second trip, though."

"Before we leave, we'll place tracking spells on all three of us," Shacklebolt said. "That way, the rest of you can Apparate to us right away--and also in case anything prevents Professor Bletchley from Apparating back."

Henry swallowed hard, turning pale, but to his credit, he just nodded and didn't attempt to back out of his promise. Tonks and Lupin placed the tracking spells on them, and then Potter stepped forward, holding out a bundle of silvery-gray cloth.

"Here's my Invisibility Cloak, if you think it will help," he said. "But I don't think it will cover all three of you at once." 

Snape took the cloak and shook it out. It was certainly large enough to conceal three children--as Potter, Weasley, and Granger must have done many times at Hogwarts--but concealing three fairly tall full-grown men was out of the question. It could partially conceal two of them, providing that they huddled closer than Snape preferred to get to anyone but Lupin, but it would still leave their feet and ankles exposed.

"Let Henry use it," Snape decided. "We'll need him to return and bring back the others if the tracking spells don't work, so he's the one who needs the protection most."

He belatedly realized that Shacklebolt might be offended that he had decided on his own without asking the Auror's opinion. While Snape normally enjoyed baiting Shacklebolt, arguing now would take up precious time. However, the Auror just nodded in agreement and said, "That makes sense. We're trained in combative magic, and Professor Bletchley isn't. And the Macnairs will be expecting you and me to come after them, but not the Professor. If we're careful, we can make it look like we Apparated in on our own, and they won't even realize that he's there."

Snape handed the cloak to Henry and asked, "Do you think that you manage to bring us in a short distance away from Greyback? Close enough to get to him quickly, but far enough away to give us a chance to sneak up on him?"

"I don't know," Henry replied doubtfully. "I can try, but since I'm Apparating blindly, there's a greater chance that we could wind up reappearing in the middle of, say, a tree or a wall."

"Apparating into the middle of a battle between two werewolves could also prove somewhat detrimental to our health," Snape pointed out wryly.

Henry winced. "Yes, I see what you mean, Severus. I can't make any guarantees, but I'll do my best." He donned the cloak, vanishing from sight, then reached out and firmly grasped Snape's arm with one hand and Shacklebolt's with the other. They moved closer together, until all three men were standing side by side with their shoulders touching (although it looked like there was a man-sized gap between Snape and Shacklebolt); standing too far apart during side-along Apparition was a good way to get splinched.

Henry drew a deep breath, then said, "All right, here we go," and Snape felt the familiar sensation of darkness closing in around them as they Disapparated.

*** 

Meanwhile, after Lukas grabbed the Portkey, he found himself transported into the middle of what looked like a swamp, his feet sinking slightly into the damp, mucky ground. He was standing in front of a small house, a little too big to be called a cottage, but still a far cry from your typical pureblood manor. It was made of weathered wood built on a sturdy stone foundation, probably because the moisture from the ground would have rotted through wood, but it also made Lukas think about underground dungeon chambers, which brought to mind images of Ash being chained and tortured in some dank, dark cell.

"Where are you, Greyback?!" Lukas shouted towards the house, and a moment later, a man with gray hair and a wolfish grin strutted out. He was big--taller than Lukas with a rangy frame that seemed a little too thin for his size, but he exuded strength and confidence. And his eyes were filled with the bloodthirsty hunger of a werewolf during the full moon with no Wolfsbane, but tempered with human intelligence and cunning that made the gray-haired man look even more dangerous, not less.

"So you did come, like a good little doggie," Greyback said with a condescending sneer. "I was afraid that you might be sensible and stay away. But on the other hand, your pack probably wouldn't want to follow a coward, would they? So you have no choice but to show up and prove yourself the alpha male."

"Where is Ash?" Lukas demanded. "I came here for him, not you!"

As if on cue, a young, dark-haired wizard emerged from the house, leading Ash by a length of silver chain attached to a silver collar around his neck. Silver shackles bound his wrists and ankles, and more silver chains wrapped around his torso to pin his arms tightly against his body, but his legs had been left free to allow him to hobble forward, moving slowly and awkwardly because of the shackles. To Lukas's relief, Ash appeared to be mostly unharmed, although there were some half-healed scratches on his face, and dried blood stained his robes and matted his hair--a hank of it near his face had obviously been cut off to provide the souvenir that had been sent to Lukas along with the Portkey.

The young wizard--Warren Macnair, he assumed--tugged on the chain, and Ash followed obediently, his eyes dull and blank; they must have used the Imperius Curse on him. The sight of Ash being led about like a dog on a leash caused Lukas's blood to boil, and by the smirk on Warren's face, they had probably done it deliberately to provoke him.

"Ash!" Lukas shouted, and his pack brother's eyes flickered with a spark of recognition as he turned in Lukas's direction.

Warren frowned disapprovingly, and with his free hand, he pointed his wand at Ash, saying, "Imperio! Behave yourself and remain still like a good dog."

Ash subsided, his eyes glazing over again, and Lukas snarled, moving towards the house with the intention of tearing Warren apart limb by limb. The young wizard hastily raised his wand again, pressing the tip of it into Ash's cheek. 

"Stay back, Diggory!" he warned. "Two simple words is all it would take to kill him, and not even a werewolf can withstand a Killing Curse!"

"If you kill him, then there's nothing to stop me from killing you!" Lukas growled, but he came to a halt nevertheless.

Warren turned pale, taking Lukas's bluff seriously, although Greyback only laughed. Then a beautiful young woman, obviously Warren's sister, came out of the house to stand beside her brother, wand in hand. 

"But if you really didn't care about your friend, you would not have come here in the first place," Imogen Macnair pointed out in a cool voice, looking calm and composed and not at all intimidated by the sight of an angry werewolf. So Snape was right about her being the alpha of her pack; her brother immediately looked to her, obviously expecting her to take charge of the situation, and even Greyback was gazing at her with a look of admiration and respect. The admiration was tinged with lust, but he kept it in check, which was further proof of Imogen's dominance. Lukas might have been impressed if he hadn't been so furious and worried about Ash.

"If you didn't care," Imogen continued, "you would have given the Portkey to the Aurors, and we would be facing Shacklebolt or Dawlish instead of you. I don't even detect any tracking spells on you. Therefore, you must care about your friend enough to risk your life for him, in which case, you won't exchange Randolf's life even for the pleasure of killing my brother." Warren swallowed hard, turning even paler, and Greyback snickered, causing the other man to glare at him.

"Therefore, I propose a bargain," Imogen said. "You and Greyback will fight as planned. If he wins, then he will take control of your pack. If you win, then we will release Randolf unharmed."

Lukas knew better than to trust her. If he defeated Greyback, he was sure that the twins would try to kill him themselves. And two against one, they might actually succeed, even if they were a couple of upstart cubs. He would be weakened from the battle, and they would still have Ash as a hostage, and on top of that, they were clearly skilled in Dark Magic, if they were able to keep a brute like Greyback under control and dominate Ash so completely with the Imperius Curse. He frowned at his pack brother in concern and confusion. Imperio was a powerful spell, of course, but a wizard with a strong enough will could fight it off, at least partially, and Ash was one of the most stubborn and willful people he knew. Yet he didn't even seem to be trying to struggle against the spell.

"Very well," Lukas agreed, having no other choice. He would try to draw out the fight with Greyback as long as possible, to give Shacklebolt and the others a better chance of finding him. He was beginning to regret not having consulted the Aurors, or at least Snape, before recklessly heading out on his own, but there was no point now in thinking about what he should have done. If he and Ash both managed to survive somehow, then he would gladly submit to being chewed out by the Aurors, Snape, and anyone else who wanted to tell him what an idiot he was.

"Oh, and one more thing," Imogen said sweetly, flicking her wand. "Accio!" she cried, and Lukas's wand flew out of his pocket and into Imogen's hand. "To keep the duel fair, of course. You werewolves prize physical combat over spells, don't you?"

Lukas made no reply, but just turned to face Greyback, who grinned widely, exposing a set of teeth that looked pointed even in his human form. "Let's get down to it, then," the other werewolf said, striding forward to meet Lukas. The two men circled warily around each other, waiting for an opening as they sized each other up. "You were wondering why Randolf isn't trying to fight off the Imperius, weren't you?" Greyback asked slyly. "Well, it's because I broke his spirit. I humbled him and showed him who's top wolf around here."

Lukas snarled and lunged forward, and he and Greyback grappled with each other, punching and clawing and biting, while the twins watched, Imogen with cool amusement and Warren with concern.

"We should just kill him," Lukas overheard Warren mutter, although most of his attention was focused on Greyback. "Why bother with this stupid duel at all?"

"Because Greyback says that the pack won't submit to him unless he defeats their leader personally," Imogen replied patiently. "An unmarked body slain by a Killing Curse isn't good enough. He needs to show them a bloody and battered corpse, both to prove that he was the one who killed Diggory, and to demoralize them and break their spirit. And besides, Greyback's been chafing for a good fight. We need to allow him an outlet for his aggression so that he won't be tempted to break his Vow."

Greyback managed to kick Lukas hard in the stomach, sending him flying backwards. The soft, muddy ground cushioned the impact of his fall somewhat, and he quickly scrambled back to his feet, ready to face his opponent. But Greyback had not taken the opportunity to follow up on his attack, and was merely standing in place with one hand resting on his chest and a look of intense concentration on his face.

And then Greyback's body began to change, a more subtle transformation than the normal monthly change at the full moon. His arms and face sprouted gray fur, his fingernails lengthened into talons, and his face elongated into a wolf's snout. Greyback opened his jaws wide to howl out a challenge at Lukas, exposing a set of long, razor-sharp teeth.

Lukas involuntarily took a step back; he knew that Greyback possessed the medallion that allowed him to transform at will, but actually witnessing the process was more unnerving than he had expected. There was a sense of, well...wrongness...in Greyback's hybrid form, neither man nor wolf, but some monstrosity in-between, as if the transformation process had been frozen halfway through.

"You're an abomination, Greyback," Lukas growled.

"Funny, now you sound like those mealy-mouthed humans who call us monsters," Greyback retorted in a low, raspy growl, his voice sounding slightly distorted in his new form. "The difference between you and me is that I'm proud to be a monster!" He flexed his hands, showing off his talons, and grinned widely, showing off his fangs. "I'm proud of the strength of my new body. Werewolves like you whine about wanting to become human, about wanting a cure. But why would I want to be trapped in a weak shell of a 'normal' human body? Deep down in your heart you know it's true, Diggory; I can smell your fear. You might as well show me your throat and surrender now. If you submit and agree to serve me as your new master, I'll ask my Lady to spare your life."

"Go to hell!" Lukas snarled, knowing that he'd made a mistake by that momentary lapse of weakness when he'd backed away from the other werewolf, but fear was a natural instinct when faced with such an opponent. In human form, he was obviously at a disadvantage against Greyback's teeth and claws. His only chance was to force his own transformation, but the only way to do that would be to allow himself to be so severely injured that his body would automatically transform in self defense. The danger was that Greyback would kill him outright before he had a chance to transform...but that was a chance that he was going to have to take.

He gathered up his nerve and charged at Greyback, who spread his arms wide, as if to embrace him. Their bodies collided with more force than the other werewolf had expected, judging by the startled look on his opponent's face as he lost his balance and fell to the ground. However, he quickly recovered and Lukas howled in pain as he felt Greyback's claws ripping through his robes and into his flesh. Then Greyback used his superior height and weight to roll over, reversing their positions and pinning Lukas beneath him.

_This might not have been such a good idea, after all,_ Lukas thought as Greyback's jaws snapped at him, trying to close around his throat. He struggled against a surge of panic, then gave in and surrendered to the fear, hoping that it would summon up his inner wolf. 

He managed to protect his throat, partially because Greyback seemed to be toying with him, not wanting to finish off his prey too quickly. So Greyback's teeth tore into Lukas's shoulder instead of his neck, but that was enough to finally bring the wolf to the surface, and for once, Lukas welcomed the pain that always accompanied the transformation, as muscles and skin and bone compressed and stretched and twisted themselves into new configurations.

Greyback didn't seem unnerved in the least to find himself wrestling with a large, angry wolf instead of a man. In fact, he just laughed as Lukas clawed wildly at him, tearing open a gash on his face. A trickle of blood ran down his cheek towards his mouth, and his tongue darted out to catch it, his eyes lighting up with satisfaction and a twisted sort of pleasure. "Good!" Greyback exclaimed. "Now we can have a real fight!"

"Hurry up and finish him off, Greyback!" Warren shouted impatiently, then cursed under his breath; the latter didn't seem to be directed at Greyback, and Lukas risked stealing a glance at the Macnairs, who were still standing near the entrance of the house. Ash was staring at him, and his eyes no longer looked quite so dull and glazed, but rather, were filled with confusion and distress, and his body was twitching jerkily.

_He's trying to fight off the spell!_ Lukas realized with relief and triumph. Maybe the sight of his pack leader being attacked had finally weakened the hold that the Imperius had over him. He tried to call out Ash's name, momentarily forgetting that he was a wolf, but was instantly reminded of it when all that came out of his mouth was a howl.

It changed into a howl of pain when Greyback's claws raked across his chest and belly. "Forget about the pup," Greyback snarled. "I'm the one you're fighting, and you'd best pay attention to _me_ unless you want to die! Then again, you're going to die no matter what, so why prolong the agony? Give up now, and I'll grant you the mercy of a quick death, since young Macnair seems to be in a bit of a hurry."

But Lukas could tell from the savage hunger in Greyback's eyes that he didn't want to grant his opponent a quick death; no matter, because Lukas had no intention of giving up. He reluctantly turned his focus back to Greyback as they bit and clawed at each other, although he could hear Warren shouting, "Imperio!" and then for good measure, "Petrificus Totalus!"

Well, at least that was better than a Killing Curse, but Lukas had little time to spare for worrying about his beloved pack brother when just trying to stay alive was requiring his full concentration. Greyback was lean, but he was big, and with his superior weight and the flexibility of his half-human form, he had a distinct advantage over Lukas.

Greyback managed to grab hold of Lukas's front legs with a crushing grip that threatened to break the bones, preventing the wolf from clawing him. Lukas growled in frustration, trying to scratch at his opponent with his hind legs, but couldn't really do so effectively with Greyback straddling him and pinning him to the ground. The other werewolf gave him a malicious grin, then leaned in, opening his jaws wide as Lukas snarled and snapped at him frantically. He managed to rip open a shallow wound on Greyback's face with his teeth, but Greyback ignored it, and clamped his jaws around Lukas's throat. 

Lukas howled, his body writhing and twisting, trying to buck Greyback off of him as he felt sharp teeth trying to force their way through his thick fur and into his flesh. He thought that he was going to die, when Greyback suddenly went rigid and his eyes went wide with fear and shock. He released Lukas and threw back his head, howling in rage as his body spasmed and twitched, much as Ash's had earlier.

Lukas finally managed to push Greyback off of him, and he scrambled to his feet, backing away from the other werewolf as Imogen shouted, "Greyback, what's wrong?"

Greyback ignored her, still caught up in whatever unseen force he was battling. Lukas circled cautiously around his opponent, wondering if he ought to attack now while Greyback was distracted.

But he had hesitated too long; Greyback clutched at his chest, and his howl turned into a roar of triumph; apparently he had won the battle. 

"Greyback!" Imogen said sharply. "Is the medallion malfunctioning?"

"No, my Lady!" Greyback declared confidently. "Everything is fine!" 

Lukas barked out a challenge, and Greyback turned to face him, grinning confidently, looking far more animal than human. "Fine, let's fight tooth and claw, wolf to wolf! I'll show you that I'm stronger than you in any form!"

"Greyback!" Imogen shouted, but her servant was already transforming smoothly into the shape of a large gray wolf. The wolf's yellow eyes were filled with hunger and malice and sheer unbridled glee, and Lukas knew instinctively that this was the form that Greyback preferred out of all three--man, half-man, and wolf. This was Greyback's true self, and before he had the medallion, he must have looked forward to the full moon with as much fervor as most werewolves dreaded it.

*** 

The two wolves lunged forward, tearing into each other with a single-minded ferocity, blood and fur flying. Warren started to call out to Greyback, but his sister stopped him.

"It's too late," she said. "Can't you see that they've gone completely wolf? Even invoking the Vow won't get through to him now."

"If we can't control him, maybe we're better off without him," Warren grumbled. 

"We still need him," Imogen insisted. "For one thing, if you kill him now, we'll have to deal with Diggory ourselves."

Warren turned a little pale as he watched the wolves move in a blur of gray and yellow-brown and red, with such speed that he wouldn't have been able to target just one of them with a Killing Curse. It was possible that he wouldn't be able to hit either of them, even if he didn't care which wolf he killed. He wondered uneasily if he would be able to throw up a Shield Charm in time if the wolves decided to charge him, or if the spell would be able to stop a werewolf at all. 

"For another, we cannot take control of the wizarding world by ourselves," Imogen continued, watching the battle with a look of calculated interest in her eyes. Warren shivered; he loved his sister, and he knew that she loved him and their father, but sometimes he suspected that ice water ran in her veins instead of blood.

"We need Greyback and the werewolves that he will bring under his control," Imogen finished, then smiled with satisfaction. "A werewolf army to do our bidding--imagine that, dear brother!"

As far as Warren was concerned, dealing with the three werewolves they had here was more than enough; he would rather not imagine an entire pack of them. He glanced nervously over at the enspelled and chained werewolf standing by his side and saw that while Randolf was still immobile, his eyes were darting about restlessly. Warren gripped his wand more tightly, beginning to wish they had never gone through with this plan in the first place, but how else would they get the chance to free Father? 

Attempting to change the subject, Warren asked, "What if Diggory's friends manage to follow him here somehow?"

"I don't know how they would manage that without a tracking spell, but never fear, my brother," Imogen replied calmly. "I've prepared a few surprises to greet any uninvited guests."

*** 

Snape, Henry, and Shacklebolt were flung out of darkness headlong into a pool of muddy water. Fortunately, it wasn't deep enough to drown in, but Snape was not pleased to have his robes drenched, nor to be spitting up mucky water, and from the look on his face, neither was Shacklebolt.

"Feh!" the Auror spat, clearing his mouth as he tried to wipe the mud from his eyes with the back of his hand. "You couldn't have given us a smoother landing, Bletchley?"

"I did my best," Henry's voice said indignantly. He was still hidden beneath the Invisibility Cloak, although his position was clearly marked by the patches of mud floating in midair. "It felt like there was some sort of anti-Apparation barrier around Greyback's location, so we were hurled outside the range of that barrier. You should be thanking Merlin that none of us got splinched!"

"It's just as well," Snape said, as he noted that neither the Macnairs nor Greyback were within sight, although he could hear wolves howling off in the distance. "As I said before, Apparating into the middle of a fight between two werewolves is rather dangerous, and this way, we have a chance to sneak up on them." Feeling much better about the situation, he cast a few quick cleaning and drying spells on himself and his companions, which improved all their moods.

"Sorry I snapped at you," Shacklebolt apologized gruffly. "You did your best under the circumstances, and I am grateful that you got us here in one piece."

Henry pushed the cloak back and became visible once more. Sounding mollified, he replied, "Well, now that I have a better fix on the location, I should be able to return and bring the others in more smoothly."

However, that turned out to be unnecessary, because Lupin, Tsubasa, Tonks, and Potter emerged out of thin air a second later, accompanied by the usual cracking noises of an Apparition. 

"Looks like the tracking spells worked!" Tonks said cheerfully. Meanwhile, Tsubasa was glancing around, getting his bearings and obviously searching for signs of their enemies, relaxing slightly when he saw they were alone. But his gaze immediately turned in the direction that the howls were coming from.

Snape half-expected Tsubasa to go charging in after his lover, but the crane man continued to behave with a remarkable degree of common sense--he definitely would not have been a Gryffindor, had he been Sorted at Hogwarts. "They're obviously somewhere in that direction," he said, gesturing towards the howling noises. "But we should move in carefully, circling around the perimeter and checking for traps."

"Agreed," Snape said approvingly; apparently all that tengu training had taught Tsubasa discipline and good strategy. "I also think it wouldn't be a bad idea to set up a few anti-Apparition wards of our own, in case the Macnairs decide to flee. They can dispel their own barriers easily enough, but they won't be expecting ours." 

"Good idea," Shacklebolt agreed. "Why don't we split up into two groups? Tonks, Harry, and I will go this way; Snape, you and Lupin can take Professor Tsubasa."

Snape bristled slightly at being ordered about, but it was a logical suggestion and besides, he didn't particularly want any of the Aurors in his group--especially the youngest. They might be grudging allies, but after seven years of teaching Potter junior, he was more than happy to let Shacklebolt take responsibility for the boy.

"I'll be leaving, then, if you don't need me any longer," Henry said, sounding relieved. 

Shacklebolt nodded. "Yes, we appreciate everything you've done for us, but there's no need for you to endanger yourself any further. Please go back to Hogwarts and bring the Headmaster up to date."

Henry nodded and handed the cloak back to Potter, saying, "All right, I'll--"

He never finished his sentence; it was cut off abruptly by a cry of surprise and pain as he toppled backwards into the mud. Snape turned towards him, startled, drawing his wand, as did the others, except for Tsubasa, who drew his sword instead. A large, spiky, dark red plant had shot forth several barbed tentacle-like vines that had wrapped around Henry's legs, pulling him off his feet, and were now also attacking his torso and arms.

Snape, Lupin, and the Aurors attacked the vines with Incendio spells, causing them to reluctantly withdraw back into the main plant; Tsubasa lopped off a few that were particularly stubborn, and the rest of the vines retreated with more haste. 

"Venomous Tentacula," Potter said. "I remember seeing them in Herbology class. But this one's bigger than any of the plants in the greenhouse."

"I see that you paid more attention in Professor Sprout's class than you did in mine," Snape said dryly as he knelt down to check on Henry. His robes were torn and stained with blood (as well as a liberal amount of mud), but the wounds were shallow. However, the main danger posed by the Venomous Tentacula was not blood loss, but as the name implied, the venom that it injected into its victims. The skin surrounding the puncture wounds was red and inflamed, and Henry's eyes were glassy, and his breath shallow and rapid.

"This specimen seems to be more virulent than usual," Snape observed as he reached into his pocket for a healing potion; Henry drank it down, but didn't look much better. "I should have brought a few bezoars with me," he muttered to himself, then asked Henry, "Are you well enough to Apparate?"

"Yes, I think so," Henry replied.

"Good," Snape said. "Get yourself to St. Mungo's before something else decides to attack us."

Henry nodded weakly. "Good luck, Severus, and...be careful."

"I don't need you to tell me that," Snape said sourly; Henry just smiled and vanished with a loud crack.

Potter was staring at the Tentacula. "That doesn't usually grow in a swamp, does it?"

"No," Snape replied. "Which means that someone--no doubt the Macnairs--deliberately planted it here. Which means there are probably other nasty surprises awaiting us."

"All the more reason to be on guard and watch for traps, as Professor Tsubasa suggested," Shacklebolt said. "Let's head out as planned, but be careful, Harry. You might as well go ahead and use the cloak since Bletchley doesn't need it any longer. Tonks and I will take the lead and deal with any traps we find; you be prepared to come our defense if necessary, but try not to reveal yourself unless absolutely necessary. We'll only get one chance to surprise Greyback and the Macnairs when we find them."

"You're our trump card, Harry," Tonks said with a smile.

The boy looked as though he had been about to argue about not having a more active role until Shacklebolt explained about keeping him in reserve and Tonks mentioned the bit about the "trump card". Then he nodded and donned the cloak without objection. It was unnecessary inflating of Potter's ego, Snape privately thought, but then, that was nothing new, and they had more important things to worry about. He mentally shrugged it off, and the two groups split up, each heading obliquely towards the source of the howling.

Lupin and Snape detected and disarmed several magical traps along the way, and paused a couple of times to cast anti-Apparition wards. Tsubasa, who still had his sword out, allowed them to take the lead and handle the traps, although he remained alert, constantly scanning the area, and pointed out another Venomous Tentacula, as well as a patch of Devil's Snare, enabling them to avoid the plants. Snape debated with himself briefly about whether he should ask the question that was on his mind, then decided that no one really expected politeness of him, so he might as well go ahead.

"No offense, Professor Tsubasa, but wouldn't it be more useful to have your wand out at the moment? I have no objection to you cutting Greyback up into tiny pieces, but wouldn't a wand be more effective at dealing with magical traps than a sword?"

"None taken," Tsubasa replied calmly. "The crane folk have no aptitude for combative magic. I'm slightly better at it than most, thanks to my education at Salem, but I'll never really be good at it. However, I am good with a sword, and since it's difficult for me to wield both a sword and a wand at once, I prefer to use the sword."

"But what if you need to deflect a spell attack, especially from a distance?" Lupin asked curiously. "A sword is a weapon meant for combat in close quarters."

Tsubasa smiled. "I explained to one of my classes that a wand is merely an object to focus and channel a wizard's power. The tengu are able to channel their magical power into their swords."

"Really?!" Lupin exclaimed. "How fascinating! So swords are like wands to them?"

"Well, not exactly," Tsubasa replied. "The tengu don't have as wide a range of magical abilities as humans do. Most of it is related to combat and defense, and their swords act as a very limited type of focus object. They can channel defensive magic through the blade and use it to deflect magical attacks, and they taught me how to do it when I was training with them. Defensive spells are also forged directly into the steel when the swords are made. You and Professor Snape seem to be handling the traps adequately, but I can use the sword to dispel minor magical wards if necessary."

"We're getting closer," Snape said. "It might be wise to cast an obscuring spell before we get within sight of our opponents." It wasn't as effective as an Invisibility Cloak, of course; it didn't actually render a person invisible, but made them difficult to notice unless they did something to draw attention to themselves. If they were careful and quiet, they should be able to get close enough to launch a surprise attack on Greyback and the Macnairs.

However, before he had a chance to cast the spell, a large creature suddenly exploded out of a nearby patch of peat, sending bits of moss and dirt flying. It was humanoid, but definitely not human, with warty, dark green skin and short horns pushing through the tangled mass of black hair on its head.

"Swamp troll," Lupin said succinctly, turning to point his wand at it. "A subspecies of the river troll."

"Thanks for the lesson, Professor Lupin," Snape said acerbically as the troll roared at them, brandishing a large spiked club. Off in the near distance, a wolf howled in pain, but Snape couldn't tell whether it was Greyback or Lukas. For all he knew, it might even be Ash.

From the way his eyes suddenly narrowed, the same thought had probably occurred to Tsubasa. "Go," he said curtly. "I'll handle this."

"But--" Lupin started to protest.

"Go!" Tsubasa repeated. "Lukas and Ash need help, and physical combat is my specialty, after all." He grinned fiercely, reminding Snape of the tengu warrior Karasu. "Don't worry; I've fought many oni in Japan--they're similar to trolls, only much more intelligent. This will be a piece of cake compared to that."

The troll had paused, club still raised, frowning at them with a slightly confused look on its face; it seemed to be trying to decide which of them to attack first.

"Don't underestimate it," Lupin cautioned. "Trolls have very tough hides--"

"Not tougher than tengu steel, I'll wager!" Tsubasa retorted. The troll finally made up its mind and started towards Lupin, but Tsubasa ran forward, shouting, "Hey ugly, over here!" The troll grunted, turning its head in Tsubasa's direction, then roared again when Tsubasa's sword darted out to nick at its leg. It was only a minor wound, but it served to get the troll's attention, and it charged after Tsubasa.

"Let's go, Lupin," Snape said, grabbing his lover's arm and urging him on in the direction of the battling wolves.

"Are you sure it's all right to just leave him there?" Lupin asked doubtfully.

"He's risking his life to give us this opportunity, so let's not waste it," Snape replied. "Besides, you remember that sword dance he performed at Chizuru's and Karasu's wedding, don't you? I think he'll be able to handle that troll without too much trouble." 

"I suppose so," Lupin conceded. "He is a master swordsman, and he's certainly faster and smarter than the troll."

"Indeed," Snape said. "So let's concentrate on Greyback and the Macnairs, who will likely be far more difficult to defeat than a troll."

They paused long enough to cast the obscuring spell, then continued on their way until they finally reached the safe house. Greyback and Lukas were fighting each other in wolf form while the Macnair twins watched; Ash was in human form, bound with chains and apparently enspelled.

Snape had to stop and take a deep breath when he saw the werewolves, their bodies torn and bleeding, their eyes maddened with rage and little if any human consciousness visible in them. It brought back vivid memories of being attacked by Lupin in the Shrieking Shack as a teenager, and it was also a reminder of how vulnerable he was. Werewolves could move with incredible speed, and it would only take a single bite from Greyback--or Lukas, for that matter; in the heat of the moment, he might have trouble distinguishing between allies and enemies--to infect him with lycanthropy. And as much as Snape loved Lupin, he didn't particularly want to become a werewolf himself.

He felt a hand squeeze his shoulder, firmly but reassuringly, and turned to see Lupin gazing at him with concern in his eyes. "Are you all right, Severus?" he whispered.

Lupin's touch steadied him and restored his courage, although he also felt a bit sheepish. Yes, a werewolf was a dangerous opponent and not to be taken lightly, but he had already faced down the Dark Lord and all of his Death Eaters in battle. He certainly wasn't about to let a single, mangy, flea-bitten werewolf intimidate him!

"I'm fine," Snape said, keeping his voice low to avoid attracting attention and thereby breaking the spell of obscurement surrounding them. "I'll go after the Macnairs; you'll have to help Lukas with Greyback..."

"Since I'm the only one who can safely deal with him, because I'm already a werewolf," Lupin finished with a nod.

"There's nothing 'safe' about Greyback," Snape warned. "Just because he can't infect you doesn't mean that he can't kill you. Don't let down your guard."

"I understand, Severus," Lupin said, a sudden fierce protectiveness flaring in his normally gentle blue eyes. "But I am a wolf, too, and it would be a mistake for him to underestimate me. You take care of the Macnairs; I won't let him get near you."

"How reassuring," Snape said sarcastically, although he was secretly touched and a little embarrassed. Lupin just gave him a feral grin, looking more like Lukas than his normal self at the moment. "All right, let's do this," Snape said, and they moved forward with their wands raised.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle between Lukas and Greyback continues, as Snape and Lupin confront the Macnairs.

Imogen turned away from the fight, and for a moment, Snape wondered if she had seen through the obscuring spell. But her gaze passed over him and Lupin without pausing; it seemed that she was merely turning towards her brother to whisper something in his ear. He nodded and laughed maliciously, and they both grinned as they turned their attention back to the dueling werewolves.

"Yes, I don't think Diggory will last much longer," Warren said, apparently in response to Imogen's comment. The blond wolf--who must of course be Lukas--was still fighting fiercely, but looked considerably more wounded and bloody than the gray, whom Snape easily recognized as his former comrade Greyback. Those yellowish eyes, filled with murderous glee and bloodlust, looked the same no matter what form he was in. 

There was a strange medallion strung around his neck, which must be the artifact that Theodore had mentioned. Normally anything on a werewolf's body, such as clothes and jewelry, transformed along with him, so only a very powerful magic item would remain unchanged after a transformation. Usually even a wizard's wand was absorbed into the werewolf's body, if it was in the pocket of his robes when he transformed.

The wolves separated briefly, trying to catch their breath, tongues lolling out and sides heaving as they panted. Lukas started forward again, then whined as his right hind leg--which was gashed and bleeding--buckled beneath him.

Greyback lunged at him, and Snape pushed Lupin towards the wolves, whispering, "Go!" Then Snape raised his wand, choosing to attack Warren first; freeing the hostage would allow them to fight without having to worry about Ash being killed.

He silently cast a Stupefying Charm, to keep the element of surprise until the very last moment, but things did not go as planned. Imogen shouted, "Warren!" and the boy twisted away to dodge the spell--not quite in time, because it still grazed him, and he staggered, dropping to his knees, but he did not fall unconscious either. He did drop the chain leash he was holding, but Ash remained standing in place like a statue, apparently still bound by the Imperius or whatever spell the Macnairs were using to control him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Snape saw that Lukas's stumble had merely been a feint; he easily sidestepped and dodged Greyback's attack. Then, while the other wolf was taken off-guard, Lukas pounced on him, knocking him over onto his back and going for his throat. Lupin had drawn his wand, but was hesitating, probably afraid to attack in case he hit Lukas by mistake.

Meanwhile, Imogen had turned to confront Snape with her wand raised. "I personally set the anti-Apparition barrier around the safe house, Professor," she said in an almost conversational tone of voice. "And when something tries to breach that barrier, it automatically alerts me. That was a nice obscuring charm, though; it probably would have worked if I hadn't been expecting company."

"If you and your brother surrender now, I'll plead for mercy on your behalf with the Ministry," Snape said. He knew that any attempts to reason with the Macnairs were probably futile, but he still had to try. For one thing, he didn't want to have to kill his former students unless absolutely necessary, and from a more practical viewpoint, if he could stall and keep the twins talking long enough, the Aurors would arrive and they would have a better chance of capturing the Macnairs and Greyback without anyone on either side being killed--except maybe Greyback. Snape was secretly hoping that Lukas would kill him; Greyback had already escaped what seemed like certain death once, and Snape would prefer to have that particular problem dealt with permanently. 

"Greyback was the one who committed the murders, after all," Snape continued persuasively. "There's no blood directly staining your hands--yet. You were devoted children, acting out of misguided love for your father..."

"You are sadly mistaken, Snape, if you think that we would ever betray our father to save ourselves!" Imogen snapped, her normally cool eyes flashing with a sudden burst of hatred and contempt. "We have no intention of surrendering! Inferi Resurrectio!"

She waved her wand, and suddenly corpses began clawing their way out of the earth beneath his feet. A skeletal hand wrapped itself around Snape's ankle and tried to pull him to the ground.

"Sectumsempra!" he shouted, neatly severing the hand. Unfortunately, it continued to attack him while the rest of the body rose up out of the ground. The unattached hand no longer had the strength to pull him off-balance, but it did claw and scratch at him--mostly ineffectually, but it was still rather unnerving.

Snape cursed under his breath. Inferi were merely animated corpses controlled by magic and apparently the enchantment on them was strong enough that they continued to remain animated even after being cut into pieces. He managed to shake the hand off his leg and set it on fire with an Incendio spell, which worked nicely, leaving a small pile of charred--and unmoving--bones on the ground. 

Fire was the best defense against Inferi, but it took a lot longer to incinerate an entire corpse than it did a single hand, and they kept attacking until the fire reduced them to bone and ash--with the unexpected side-effect of nearly setting Snape on fire in the process when they tried to grab him while their bodies were still burning. 

One or two or even three, he could have handled easily enough, but there were more than a dozen Inferi in varying stages of decay. Some were little more than skeletons with a few shreds of rotting flesh and rags still hanging off their bones, while others were more intact, although their flesh was still putrid and decaying. The less rotted corpses were easily identifiable as Muggles by their clothing--probably victims Walden Macnair had killed as a Death Eater, and then seeded here as Inferi to guard his safe house. There was a reason why Macnair had taken a job as an executioner of dangerous beasts at the Ministry: he took pleasure in the act of killing, although he preferred human victims over animals.

The Inferi were disgusting to look at, and the stench of decaying flesh was even worse, but that was not enough to adversely affect Snape, who had seen even more horrific things as a Death Eater. No, what truly turned his stomach was the fact that while most of the Inferi appeared to be grown men and women, a few of them were children. One of them, a little girl, still had long blonde hair clinging to what remained of her scalp, and wore a tattered lacy dress that had probably once been white, but was now yellowed with age and covered with brown smears of dirt. 

There was another who was obviously a boy, perhaps a few years older than the girl at the time of his death--possibly an older brother, since they were in a similar state of decomposition, and had probably been killed at about the same time. There was also a third corpse that was so decayed that it was impossible to determine the gender, but its size clearly marked it as a child.

The girl-Inferius attacked Snape, trying to bite and claw him, and he hurled her away from him with a spell, then set her on fire with another. He fought the urge to vomit as the little corpse ran in frantic circles, her--its--mouth open in a silent scream until it finally collapsed on the ground and mercifully fell still. He tried to remind himself that it was not really a child that he had just killed, merely an empty husk of a body, but it didn't make him feel any better. If he survived this battle, he just might go to Azkaban and kill Walden Macnair with his bare hands.

However, that was a pretty big "if" at the moment. The Inferi were swarming him, trying to bring him down, and he cried out in pain as another child-corpse sank its teeth into his leg, hard enough to tear through his trousers. He blasted it with a spell, and felt blood trickling down his leg as he turned to repel one of the adult Inferi. Inferi-inflicted wounds carried a serious risk of infection, but that was the least of his worries right now. 

He glanced around and was relieved to see that Lupin was unharmed, although he was too busy fending off Inferi of his own to come to Snape's aid. Interestingly enough, the Inferi seemed to be leaving the wolves alone, perhaps at Imogen's command. She was motioning with her wand, as if trying to direct the Inferi, almost like a conductor leading a symphony, although with much less subtlety and finesse, as Inferi lacked intelligence and could respond only to general commands along the lines of "guard this place" and "attack intruders".

However, Imogen didn't really need any finesse to kill them, and it wasn't so much the Inferi that Snape was worried about. If it had only been the Inferi that they were dealing with, he and Lupin could manage to defeat them, given enough time. The real danger was that the Inferi might pin them down long enough for one or both of the twins to hit them with a Killing Curse.

Sure enough, Warren pointed his wand at Snape and shouted, "Avada Kedavra!" There was no room to dodge, but Snape managed to shove one of the Inferi into the path of the spell, just in the nick of time. The corpse was merely stunned for a moment, then resumed attacking him. It was impossible to kill something that was already dead, so the curse had no effect on the Inferius, but at least it had come in handy as a shield.

"Damn you, Snape!" Warren snarled in frustration. "But you won't be able to dodge all of my spells! Imogen, can't you make the Inferi overpower him?"

"I'm trying, dear brother!" Imogen snapped irritably.

Lukas saw that they were in trouble and started to move towards them, but Greyback wouldn't him allow him to break off their duel, howling in rage and lunging at his opponent, raking his claws across the yellow wolf's side. Lukas yelped in pain and was forced to turn his full attention back to Greyback.

_Where are the damned Aurors?!_ Snape wondered as he tried to simultaneously fight the Inferi and avoid Warren's spells. He should have known better than to count on the Ministry for backup! Potter had probably carelessly stumbled into a trap, in which case Tonks and Shacklebolt would have stopped to save him. Merlin forbid that any harm should befall the boy hero of the war, never mind that he and Lupin were fending off Inferi and Killing Curses, not to mention Lukas being mauled by Greyback.

Or to be fair, it was equally likely that the accident-prone Tonks was the one who had stumbled--quite literally--into a trap, but Snape was not in a mood to be fair. He wanted someone to blame, and it was much more satisfying to blame Potter for his troubles. Then again, he didn't have much fondness for the overly-cheerful Miss Tonks, either, so maybe he'd just go ahead and blame both of them--and throw in Shacklebolt, too, for good measure.

Just then, Tsubasa came charging towards them with his sword drawn. He was covered in blood, but it must have belonged to the troll, since he was moving quickly and easily, showing no sign of being injured. He ruthlessly and determinedly began hacking his way through the corpses, not even flinching as he lopped off the head of the boy-Inferius, which went sailing through the air until it hit the ground and rolled to a stop at Lupin's feet. Lupin did flinch, letting out a startled cry as he jumped back in revulsion.

Drenched in blood and eyes gleaming with a cold, grim intensity, Tsubasa looked like an avenging demon as he cut his way through the Inferi, his sword whirling in a deadly silver blur as severed limbs flew every which way; one struck Snape and nearly knocked his wand out of his hand. He started to cast an Incendio spell, but then noticed that all the body parts that Tsubasa hacked off instantly reverted back to their natural state of dead, unmoving flesh and bone. The crane warrior had mentioned that his sword could dispel minor wards, but he might have been overly modest, because the enchantment on his weapon was clearly strong enough to break the spells that animated the Inferi, and those spells were not exactly what Snape would call "minor". They were advanced Dark Magic, difficult to cast, and even more difficult to break.

With Tsubasa's help, the Inferi were rapidly being destroyed, and Imogen was beginning to look a little worried, while Warren looked downright panicky. "Avada Kedavra!" Imogen shouted, aiming the curse at Tsubasa, but he whipped his sword up in front of him and used the blade to deflect the spell, sending it bouncing back towards her, and Imogen had to duck to avoid being hit by her own curse.

Warren pointed his wand at Tsubasa, and Ash finally seemed to shake off the spell that was immobilizing him. Still bound and shackled, he couldn't cast a spell or even walk freely, so he simply hurled his entire body at Warren, knocking him to the ground and disrupting his spell.

Warren angrily shoved Ash off of him and shouted, "Crucio!" 

The werewolf screamed in agony, and the coldness in Tsubasa's eyes rapidly ignited into a much more heated state of fury. He headed in a straight line towards Warren, cutting down any of the Inferi unlucky enough to be blocking his path. Although dead, they must have retained some sense of self-preservation, because they scrambled to get out of his way. Tsubasa cleaved one Inferius that wasn't quick enough nearly in two, then kicked the body aside without sparing it a second glance. Snape made a mental note never to get on the swordsman's bad side, and revised his opinion of physical combat upwards a few notches.

"Let's retreat for now," Imogen said to her brother, who nodded in fervent agreement. A look of concentration filled their faces, quickly replaced by one of chagrin as they realized that they were unable to Disapparate. 

"You're not the only ones who can cast anti-Apparition wards," Snape informed them with a nasty smile. "Better surrender now, or I'll let Professor Tsubasa deal with you." 

Either the Macnairs weren't willing to give up yet, or they didn't trust Snape to keep Tsubasa from killing them, because they turned and fled into the house. He couldn't entirely blame them, because he wasn't sure himself if he could control Tsubasa.

"It would be preferable to take them alive, if possible, Professor," Snape called out to his colleague, although he remained well out of range of Tsubasa's sword, just to be on the safe side.

"I'll spare them if they surrender," Tsubasa replied curtly. He glanced at Ash, who was lying on the ground, groaning softly in pain as he recovered from the effects of the Cruciatus, and amended his statement with a "Maybe." His path now clear, he made his way over to his lover, knelt down beside him, and asked in a much gentler voice, "Are you all right, Ash?"

"Ye...yeah," Ash replied, a little unsteadily. "I'm fine; go help Lukas."

"I'll free you first, and then we can both help him," Tsubasa said, raising his sword. "Hold still for a moment."

"What--?" was all Ash managed to get out before the sword slashed down and sheared neatly through the silver chains without so much as nicking Ash's skin or even his robes. "Merlin's blue balls!" the werewolf shrieked, patting down his torso to make sure that his body was still intact. "Warn me the next time you're going to do something like that!"

"I did," Tsubasa replied calmly. "I told you to hold still. Here, let me get those shackles off you, too."

"You are not swinging that piece of metal anywhere near my neck!"

"Have you no faith in my skill?" Tsubasa asked with a grin. As Ash spluttered and cursed, Tsubasa laughed and said, "Relax, all I need to do is press the tip of the sword into the locks and dispel the wards on them."

"It's a magic sword," Snape informed Ash helpfully, as he and Lupin finished off what was left of the Inferi.

The shackles gave way easily, and Ash sighed, rubbing his neck and wrists, which were reddened and blistered where the silver had touched them. Then he gave his lover an accusing look and said, "Wait a minute--if the sword has some kind of dispelling magic, then you didn't really need to cut through the chains! You could have just broken the binding charm on them!"

"Well, maybe I just wanted to show off a little bit," Tsubasa admitted with a mischievous smile.

"I ought to wring your neck," Ash growled, but instead he grabbed Tsubasa and gave him a brief but passionate kiss. "But I'll kill you later. Right now we need to take care of Greyback and my dear half-brother and sister."

The Inferi were finally all dead--permanently this time. Snape was about to follow the Macnairs into the safe house when they came running out, dodging a barrage of stunning and binding spells being flung at them by Shacklebolt and Tonks. The latter's normally spiky violet hair was plastered flat against her head, and her robes were sopping wet, and she left a trail of little puddles and muddy footsteps behind her as she ran.

"Sorry we're late!" she apologized breathlessly.

"Let me guess, you fell into a trap," Snape said dryly.

"Er, no, there was no trap or magic involved," Tonks replied sheepishly. "I tripped and fell headlong into a pond." She lifted the hem of her robe, exposing a ring of bloody teeth marks on her calf. "Which contained a grindylow, by the way."

"Never mind that now!" Shacklebolt said impatiently.

The twins were standing back to back, wands raised, their eyes frantic and desperate as they looked around, uncertain whom they should attack next. They had the look of wild animals backed into a corner, and Snape knew that even a rat could be dangerous when it was trapped with nowhere to go. The Aurors obviously knew this, too, because they approached the pair cautiously, circling around them from one side as Lupin and Snape slowly closed in on the other. 

Lukas and Greyback remained locked in combat, and Ash was edging towards them while warily keeping an eye on the Macnairs, moving a bit stiffly after being bound for so long. Tsubasa remained at his side, sword ready and poised to strike. Snape had no idea where Potter was, but Tonks and Shacklebolt didn't seem worried about him, so presumably he was still sneaking around hidden beneath his Invisibility Cloak. If so, he might be able to disarm the twins before anyone else got hurt.

_Anytime now, Potter,_ Snape thought sourly. Typical Gryffindor, waiting to make a dramatic entrance.

Maybe the boy had picked up on his thoughts, although Snape doubted it, given the difficulty he'd had learning Occlumency. But whether due to mind-reading or sheer coincidence, Potter dropped his cloak and suddenly appeared next to Snape, shouting, "Expelliarmus!"

Unfortunately, he only managed to disarm one of the twins, although it was Imogen, whom Snape judged to be the more dangerous of the two. She cried out as her wand flew from her grasp, and Potter was forced to back off as Warren shot a curse at him.

"Damn you, Potter," Warren hissed, eyes filled with pure hatred as he glared at the Boy Who Lived. "If you had died as you should have in the final battle, then my sister and I would be Death Eaters, rulers of the wizarding world, instead of fugitives on the run!"

"No, you would be slaves," Snape corrected coldly. "Pampered slaves for a time, perhaps, since your father had the Dark Lord's favor, but no one remains Voldemort's favorite for long. Sooner or later, he would always suffer a fit of temper and punish whoever was most convenient, whether or not they had actually done anything to deserve it. All of the Death Eaters, myself included, have experienced the Cruciatus at our Master's hand at one time or another. Your father knew this. Why else do you think that he sent you and Imogen away to Europe instead of having you take the Dark Mark?"

"Father was just being overprotective!" Warren snapped. "He still thought of us as children, even though we were grown and ready to fight by his side!"

"Your father was hedging his bets," Snape retorted. "He was trying to protect you in case Voldemort failed, and he was right to do so. You and Imogen were innocent of any crimes; you had the chance to rebuild your lives and live free of imprisonment or servitude, but you have wasted the gift that your father gave you. All you have done is to repeat the same mistakes he made!"

"Rebuild our lives?" Warren scoffed. "So that we can live 'free,' with all of the wizarding world sneering at us for being Death Eaters' children? So that I can remain unemployed while Imogen works at a menial clerical job?"

"I offered to help you," Snape reminded him. "And I will offer to help once again--and this time you had better think twice before you refuse me." He appealed to Imogen, who had always been the more sensible of the twins. 

"It's over, Imogen; you know that you can't take on all of us, not with only one wand between you. You were once my students, and I don't want to have to hurt you. Surrender for now, and live to fight another day." He pointedly turned his gaze towards Tsubasa, who looked as though he was still contemplating turning the twins into mincemeat. "There are others who don't care whether we bring you in dead or alive, and would, in fact, prefer 'dead'."

Imogen frowned thoughtfully, and Snape could see her weighing the options in her mind. "Warren, perhaps..." she said reluctantly.

"No!" Warren shouted defiantly, choosing an inopportune time to assert his independence. Snape cursed under his breath; why couldn't he simply follow his sister's lead as he had always done? But Warren appeared to have been pushed beyond his limits; his eyes glittered with the suicidal recklessness of a man with nothing left to lose. "I'll never surrender! If I'm going down, then I'm taking Potter with me! Avada Kedavra!"

Potter was taken off-guard when Warren suddenly turned away from Snape and towards him, so Snape, who was closest to the boy, hastily threw a Shield Charm in front of him. The Killing Curse rebounded straight back at Warren, who started to duck, then realized that the curse would hit Imogen, who was standing right behind him. He pushed his sister out of harm's way, but that slight delay cost him his life. The jet of green light struck him in the chest, and he toppled to the ground, his eyes frozen open in an expression of shock, staring lifelessly up at the sky.

"Damn it!" Snape swore; he hadn't wanted to kill the boy. It was bad luck that the spell had bounced back at the wrong angle, and that Warren had been too slow to avoid it.

"Warren!" Imogen screamed hysterically as she fell to her knees beside her brother, tears streaming down her cheeks as her face contorted with sorrow and rage. "You killed him!" she shouted accusingly at Snape.

"You killed my parents," Ash growled, staring at her without any sympathy. "And Mrs. Abbott, and that street vendor, and Sebastien Delauney, and that poor whore in Knockturn Alley."

Imogen's gaze swiveled towards Ash. "It's all your fault!" she screamed, her eyes now as mad as her brother's had been. "We freed Greyback and killed those people because of you, to protect the family honor! If you hadn't been born, none of this would have happened! If you hadn't been born, Warren would still be alive!" She snatched up her brother's wand and ran towards Ash, shouting, "Avada--"

Snape and the other wizards pointed their wands at her, but before they could get a single spell off, Tsubasa had already darted out in front of Ash, dropped down on one knee, and thrust upwards with his sword. Imogen's momentum carried her forward, impaling her on the blade, which pierced her belly and emerged out of her back. Tsubasa twisted his hand sharply, then jerked the blade free, and Imogen screamed, dropping her wand to clutch at her stomach as she collapsed on the ground. Blood poured out between her fingers, and her intestines threatened to spill out of the gaping wound as her hands feebly tried to press them back into her body. Potter looked like he was going to throw up, and Snape felt a little sick himself.

"That's for trying to kill my mate," Tsubasa said coldly, as Ash stared at him wide-eyed, looking as though he didn't know whether to be impressed or horrified.

"Severus," Lupin whispered, clutching at his arm, looking almost as pale as Potter. "Do you have another healing potion?"

Snape was about to reply that he didn't think a mere healing potion would save Imogen, when a howl of anguish and fury tore through the air. Greyback broke away from Lukas and charged towards Tsubasa, his yellow eyes glowing with a single-minded desire for revenge.

Tsubasa raised his sword, still slick with Imogen's blood, preparing to meet him, and Snape and the others raised their wands. But Ash lunged at Greyback, wrapping his arms around the wolf and tackling him to the ground, refusing to let go even when Greyback's claws and teeth ripped through his robes and into his flesh. Tsubasa ran forward to defend his mate, but Lukas barked at him sharply, with a look in his eyes that clearly said, "Back off; he's mine," then clamped his jaws around Greyback's neck and tore it open. 

Blood gushed out of the wound, and Ash released Greyback, letting him fall limply to the ground. "We...we had better get Imogen to St. Mungo's," Tonks said shakily.

"She has massive internal injuries," Snape said. "I doubt that she'll make it, even if we could Apparate to the hospital directly, and we still have to take down the anti-Apparition wards."

"We have to at least try," Lupin said, still looking pale. "Kingsley and I will dispel the wards; please do what you can for her in the meantime."

It was probably a waste of time, but Lupin was too tenderhearted to let the girl die without even trying to help her, even if she was a murderess, and Snape didn't have the heart to argue with him. He reached into his pocket for a vial of healing potion, then froze when he heard a low growl and saw Greyback's body stir--he wasn't quite as dead as he had appeared at first glance.

Greyback slowly crawled forward, and Tsubasa started to raise his sword, but Lupin placed a hand on his arm to stop him. "Wait," he said softly. "He's clearly no threat, and I don't think he's trying to attack us."

Snape took a closer look at Greyback, and thought Lupin might be right. The mortally wounded werewolf ignored Tsubasa and any other potential opponents; his attention was focused solely on Imogen, and there was a strangely tender look in his eyes that seemed completely out of character with the Greyback that Snape had known as a Death Eater.

"Greyback?" Imogen whispered as the wolf came to a halt beside her, still bleeding profusely. She hesitantly reached out to him with one hand, and he licked it gently, then raised his head to meet her gaze. They stared silently at each other for a long moment, and some unspoken message seemed to pass between them as that odd tenderness in Greyback's eyes hardened into a firm resolve.

"N-no," Imogen protested in response to whatever she thought Greyback was trying to tell her. "No, I'd rather die!" She tried to pull away from him, but was too weak to move, and Greyback sank his teeth into her arm. Imogen screamed with as much strength as she could muster, a thin wail of outrage and horror. Greyback released her, then slumped to the ground and lay still. A moment later, his body transformed back into his human form; there was a look of peace and contentment on his face that seemed incongruous with the bloody ruin of his throat just below.

Lukas transformed back into a man as well, looking nearly as bloody and mangled as Greyback. He also still had Greyback's blood staining his lips and running down his chin, and Tonks and Potter visibly shuddered at the sight. Lukas noticed their reaction and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, growling, "Please tell me that the bastard is really dead this time."

Lupin cautiously approached and checked the body. "Yes, he's definitely dead," he confirmed. Imogen ignored them all, still screaming and weeping hysterically.

"What just happened here?" Shacklebolt asked, looking stunned.

"I think...he saved her," Snape replied, scarcely believing it himself. If he hadn't seen the look on Greyback's face before he died, he might have suspected the werewolf of committing a final act of malice, turning one of the purebloods that he scorned into a fellow monster.

"He bit her to give her a werewolf's healing ability," Potter said, comprehension dawning in his eyes. "The way that Master Diggory bit Aric to save him from Williamson's Blood Poisoning spell."

"But why would Greyback want to save Imogen?" Shacklebolt wondered. "He was never the altruistic sort, though I suppose he might have felt some gratitude to the Macnairs for freeing him from the sanatorium. Still, I would have expected him to use his last moment of life to try to take one of his enemies down with him, not save an ally."

"While I was being held captive, I saw him interact with the Macnairs," Ash said thoughtfully. "He held Warren in contempt, but he respected Imogen. He treated her like an alpha wolf, and he looked at her the way a wolf looks at its mate. I thought maybe it was only lust, but after seeing this...I think he loved her, in his own twisted fashion. He was bound by an Unbreakable Vow, by the way--I heard them talking about it; that was how the twins kept him under control. If he attacked either one of them, he would have died, but I guess that he figured since he was dying anyway, he might as well save his mate."

"Gee, that's almost romantic," Tonks said, a bemused look on her face.

"I don't care if he picked roses and wrote poetry for her," Lukas snarled. "I'm glad he's dead, and I wouldn't shed any tears if she were dead, too." 

"It might have been more merciful to kill her," Snape told him. "She's lost her beloved twin, and her pure blood has been irrevocably tainted. If it makes you feel any better, you can comfort yourself with the thought of her living in utter misery at Azkaban for the rest of her life."

"Well, maybe you're right," Lukas grudgingly acknowledged. "But it would still have been more satisfying to kill her."

"You werewolves are always simplistically direct in your motives and actions," Snape said a bit snidely, but he gazed at Imogen, and at Warren's corpse, and felt a pang of regret and sorrow. He had never been especially fond of the Macnair twins, but they had been his students, and he felt a certain sense of protectiveness for all his Slytherins, past and present, especially the offspring of his fellow Death Eaters. It wasn't their fault that they had been brainwashed with Death Eater doctrine from the moment they were born. 

He had managed to save the younger Slytherins from becoming Death Eaters, but Theodore and Serafina hadn't had much reason to feel loyalty towards their abusive fathers, and Draco had been betrayed by Lucius. For all his other faults, Walden had always been a loving parent to his children, so they'd had no reason to rebel against him or question his beliefs. Maybe they would have been better off in the long run if he'd been abusive like Nott and Avery, or cold and distant like Lucius Malfoy.

In spite of being bitten and infected by Greyback, Imogen was still grievously wounded; she wouldn't receive the full healing benefits of lycanthropy until after her first transformation. So Snape went over to her and poured a vial of healing potion down her throat; he had to use a spell to force her to swallow, because she was still protesting that she didn't want to live.

By the time he was done, Lupin and Shacklebolt had dispelled the anti-Apparition wards, and they took Imogen to St. Mungo's, still ranting about how "that whoreson werewolf" had destroyed her family. Lukas was also taken to the hospital, somewhat against his will, protesting that he would heal fine on his own. Ash, however, meekly obeyed when Tsubasa sternly insisted that he should get checked by a Healer, and grinned rather foolishly at his lover.

*** 

Once the wounded were safely deposited at St. Mungo's, Shacklebolt went off to report to Dawlish, who was predictably furious that they'd acted without his knowledge or permission, though somewhat mollified that Greyback and the Macnairs had finally been caught, and he could report to the press that the wizarding world was safe once again.

"You're just damned lucky that you managed to catch the killers and that no innocents were hurt in the process," Dawlish growled, confronting his three subordinates at St. Mungo's. 

"Well, actually, Lukas and Ash were hurt, but the Healers say that they'll be all right," Lupin couldn't resist informing him. The Head Auror turned and gave him a sour look that managed to silently but eloquently convey the impression that one, he didn't consider the two werewolves to be "innocents," and two, Lupin should mind his own damned business.

"Because if anything had gone wrong, you three would all be out of a job," Dawlish continued, pointedly turning his back on Lupin. "And make no mistake, I will fire you the next time that you go running off on your own again! Is that clear?"

"But we--" Potter started to argue, then fell silent as Shacklebolt nudged him in the side with his elbow.

"Yes, Richard," Shacklebolt and Tonks chorused pleasantly.

"Yes," Potter said a bit sullenly, and then added a reluctant "sir" when prompted by another nudge.

Dawlish scowled, then went off to badger the Healers into letting him question Imogen. Snape smiled, suddenly feeling very cheerful that Potter's insolence was now being inflicted on someone else, particularly a someone that Snape didn't like.

Just then, Narcissa arrived, dramatically sweeping down the hall, wearing her velvet robes and her best jewelry almost like a suit of armor, like a knight about to go into battle, with her head held high and her eyes blazing with anger. Draco and several anxious-looking werewolves trailed behind her. Snape was impressed that she somehow managed to "sweep" instead of waddle, being nine months pregnant and close to her delivery date, but then, Narcissa's vanity probably wouldn't allow her to be anything less than graceful, even at a time like this. 

"Where is my husband?!" she demanded, and Snape silently motioned towards Lukas's hospital room. 

She stormed past him, and Lupin whispered, "Is it really safe to let her see him in that mood?"

"No, but if you think that I'm going to put myself between her and Lukas, you're even crazier than I thought, you idiot Gryffindor," Snape retorted. "Besides, he has it coming to him, considering how foolishly he acted."

"Yes, but I don't want my baby brother to grow up without a father," Draco said fretfully. 

"She won't really kill Lukas...will she?" a dark-haired female werewolf asked nervously. She was a maid at the Leaky Cauldron, Snape recalled.

"Oh, I don't think so, Rachel," Lupin reassured her. "Although maybe we should check on them, just to be on the safe side."

"Dear Merlin," Rachel sighed, shaking her head. "She acts like a pampered lady most of the time, but I guess she really is a fit mate for a werewolf, after all."

They cautiously peered through the doorway to watch as Narcissa confronted her husband. Lukas was sitting on the bed while Takeshi Kimura treated his wounds, but after taking one look at Narcissa's face, the young mediwizard prudently removed himself from the line of fire and joined the crowd in the doorway. 

"Isn't abandoning your patient a violation of the healer's oath?" Snape asked wryly.

"I can't heal anyone if I'm dead," Takeshi pointed out reasonably. 

"Cyril Lukas Gravenor Diggory!" Narcissa shouted imperiously at her husband.

"Er...hello, dear," Lukas said, smiling at her weakly.

"Don't you 'hello, dear' me!" she snapped. "You're a married man with a baby on the way! You can't go running off to play hero like some idiot schoolboy!"

"I never went to school," Lukas protested.

"Don't play semantics with me, Cyril!" Narcissa retorted, and Lukas winced. 

"That's a bad sign," Draco whispered. "She only calls him by his real name when she's really angry."

"But my dear," Lukas argued, "Ash had been kidnapped, and they were going to kill him..."

"He's an idiot," Snape muttered, shaking his head. "He ought to just grovel and beg forgiveness at this point."

"Yes, but it's precisely because he's an idiot that he got into this mess in the first place," Takeshi said pleasantly. "So you can't really expect him to know any better."

"Good point," Snape conceded. 

Meanwhile, Narcissa was screaming, "You walked into a bloody trap, and what's worse is that you did so knowingly!"

"But I--" was all Lukas managed to get out before Narcissa shouted him down.

"I'm not saying that you shouldn't have gone to help him! But you should have been smart about it! You should have consulted with Severus and the Aurors, but no, you had to go charging in alone like some idiot Gryffindor hero!"

"I take offense to that," Lupin complained, although he smiled as he said it--and he was careful to keep his voice low enough that Narcissa couldn't overhear him, which proved that perhaps not all Gryffindors were idiotically reckless.

"But Ash--"

"What good would it have done him if you had gotten yourself killed?!" Narcissa shrieked. Her voice rose a full octave, and everyone within hearing distance, Snape included, winced in pain and clapped their hands over their ears--except for Lukas. He just hung his head guiltily, looking more like a pet dog being scolded for piddling on the carpet than the fearsome leader of a werewolf pack.

"What would have happened to _me_ if you got yourself killed before our son is born?! Were you going to make me raise this baby alone?! Were you going to let poor Cedric Drake grow up without a father?!"

"Narcissa, I--" 

Lukas's words were cut off as his wife slapped him hard enough to make his head snap to one side. Snape could almost feel his own teeth rattling in sympathy.

"How could you do this to me?!" Narcissa screamed, then burst into tears.

"Narcissa, I'm so sorry," Lukas said, rising to wrap his arms around her. "You're right; I was a complete idiot. I should've trusted Remus and Severus and the others to help me. I'm not used to trusting anyone outside the pack, but that's no excuse. If it makes you feel better, you can hit me some more."

Narcissa giggled through her tears and slapped him again, though with much less force this time. "Don't make me laugh when I'm trying to be angry at you!"

"I'm sorry, dear," Lukas said meekly, although the corners of his mouth were twitching slightly.

Narcissa opened her mouth to reply, but all that came out was a gasp as her eyes widened in surprise.

"Narcissa?" Lukas asked anxiously. "What's wrong?"

"I think my water broke," Narcissa replied, clutching at her stomach. Snape looked down and saw that there was a puddle forming on the floor beneath her feet, soaking the hem of her robes.

"What?!" Lukas exclaimed, turning pale. "You're having the baby _now?!"_

"Sometimes stress can induce labor early," Takeshi said, giving Lukas a pointed look, and the werewolf flushed with guilt. The mediwizard gently took Narcissa by the arm and guided her to the bed. "I'll send for the midwife. Is there anyone else you would like me to call for you, Lady Narcissa?"

"Aileen," she replied, naming her best friend. "And Professor Blackmore. And..." She bit her lower lip, suddenly looking more like a schoolgirl than an expectant mother. "I want Andie," she whispered.

"Andie?" Takeshi asked, looking puzzled.

"I think she means her sister, Andromeda," Lupin explained, and Narcissa nodded. "I'll send a message to her, and to Aileen and Branwen."

"Thank you," Takeshi said, and hurried off to fetch the midwife.

The midwife arrived, and the other women followed soon after. Aileen patted Narcissa's hand and made soothing small talk, while Andromeda bent down to kiss her sister on the forehead, looking surprised but touched that Narcissa had asked for her. Branwen took charge of things with a stern but motherly air that Narcissa seemed to find reassuring, and unceremoniously threw all the men out of the room, although the female werewolves were allowed to stay.

"But...but...the baby...it's early...is she going to be all right?" Lukas protested, not quite coherently, in a plaintive voice that was closer to a whine than a growl. "I need to be with Narcissa!"

"He is the father, after all," one of the male werewolves pointed out, then paled and ducked behind his pack leader for protection when Branwen shot a withering glare his way.

"Finish getting your wounds treated, and change into some clean robes," Branwen said, gazing at Lukas's torn and bloody clothing. "Then I'll let you back in if you promise to remain calm. You'll upset Narcissa if you keep acting like you think something's going to go wrong with the birth."

"But it's coming early," Lukas whined. "Isn't that bad? And it will be my fault if anything happens to her or the baby!"

"It's not that early," Takeshi reassured him. "It's not that far from her expected delivery date, and all her previous checkups show that baby and mother are both healthy." 

"It's not as if she hasn't done this before," Branwen reminded Lukas impatiently. "She had Draco without any problems."

"But that was eighteen years ago," Lukas argued. "And she didn't have to worry about the possibility of Draco being infected with lycanthropy."

"Healer Smethwyck and I will be on call in case there are any complications in that regard," Takeshi said soothingly. "But you really don't need to worry. The chances are slim that Cedric will inherit your lycanthropy, and even if he did, it normally wouldn't manifest for another four or five years."

"Pull yourself together!" Branwen snapped, giving Lukas brief, sharp slap across the face. "Narcissa needs a husband to support her, not another baby to look after!"

"Yes, ma'am," Lukas mumbled, hanging his head in shame. Having been on the receiving end of Branwen's lectures several times in the past, Snape might have felt sorry for him--if he hadn't run off alone on a suicidal rescue mission by himself, that is.

"Don't worry, Professor," Takeshi said cheerfully. "I'll give him a tranquilizer, if necessary."

"Do that," Branwen said, and firmly shut the door in their faces.

"I'll finish treating Lukas," Takeshi said. "The rest of you might as well go home for now; the baby probably won't arrive for at least another several hours."

Draco and the werewolves insisted on staying until the baby was born, even if they had to sleep in the waiting room. Snape asked about Henry, and was told that he was still in the hospital.

"Yes, he's in room 304, in the Potion and Plant Poisoning ward," Takeshi said. "He should be all right, but the venom from the Tentacula was unusually strong, so the Healers wanted to keep him here overnight for observation as a precaution."

When Snape and Lupin arrived at the room, they were surprised to hear a feminine voice laughing and chatting with Henry, and Lupin placed a finger across his lips as he peered through the doorway.

"Eavesdropping, Lupin?" Snape whispered, raising an eyebrow. "That's hardly very Gryffindor of you." But he also kept quiet and snuck a peek through the doorway.

Erika Dietrich was arranging some flowers in a vase on the nightstand next to Henry's bed. "Well, you more than kept your word, Henry," she said. "The killers have been found, and the Macnairs were proven to have been behind it all. A werewolf did commit the actual murders, but apprehending a long-lost Death Eater should offset the bad press and make Arthur Weasley into a hero, if he plays his cards right. So his job and the laws protecting the werewolves should be safe. And the Aurors couldn't have done it without you, I hear."

Henry flushed with pleasure but said modestly, "Oh, I just helped a little."

"More than a little," Erika said, her expression serious now, and she reached out to clasp his hand. "You put your own life at risk, which is far more than our bargain required of you. Whatever favor you ask, I will be more than happy to fulfill for you."

Henry's fingers tightened around hers, and he took a deep breath, as if to gather up his courage. "Actually, I've decided on what I want."

"Oh, already?" Erika asked, looking surprised. "Well, fine. As long as it is within my power as the Dietrich heir, I will gladly do as you ask."

"Oh, it's within your power, all right," Henry replied. "If you don't mind, I'd actually like to go back to your original proposal. That is, as my reward, I am requesting your hand in marriage."

"Oh!" Erika exclaimed, looking shocked but not displeased. "But I thought you said that you didn't want to marry anyone, that you weren't interested in political ambition."

"Ah, well," Henry said, smiling sheepishly. "I sort of had a change of heart when I was nearly killed in the swamp. A near-death experience puts things into a totally different perspective, makes you realize what's really important to you."

"I see," Erika said with a smile. "You've gotten in touch with your inner Slytherin?"

"Yes," he replied, smiling back at her. "I find that I've discovered boundless depths of ambition within my heart."

"And will you still wish to continue your work as a scholar?"

"Of course. It's an ideal situation for me: I get to continue the research that I love, while my wife does all the work of running our estate."

"I see; you reap the benefits without having to do the labor."

"Exactly."

"You are a true Slytherin, after all."

"Thank you. But I think I will spend a little less time abroad than I planned."

"You need to keep an eye on your investment."

"Exactly."

By this time, the two of them were grinning at each other like a couple of idiots. "This is a completely professional and political transaction, you understand," Erika clarified.

"Oh, absolutely," Henry agreed. "I'm not the romantic type at all. It just seemed perfectly logical that I should marry the one woman I've met who is able to both put up with my work and make my family happy."

"Just so it's understood."

"Now that we've agreed that it's a purely political marriage, will you consent to be my bride?"

"Well, I do have one more condition," Erika said. "If my eldest child is a girl, I intend to name her as my heir."

"That's fine with me," Henry agreed.

"Then I have no objections."

"Good. Then our bargain is sealed. And, er...I do understand that a betrothal ceremony is traditionally sealed with a kiss."

"Well then, being good Slytherins, we shouldn't break with tradition."

As the two of them kissed, with somewhat more enthusiasm than was the norm for a "purely political" betrothal, Snape motioned Lupin away from the door.

"Henry seems to be recovering quite nicely, and I don't think he would appreciate being disturbed right now."

"My goodness," Lupin said, looking a little bemused. "Is that what a typical Slytherin courtship is like?"

"I wouldn't exactly call it 'typical,'" Snape said with a grin. "Although it is quite typical of a Slytherin to find a practical rationalization to justify a personal pleasure."

"Ah," Lupin said, linking his arm through Snape's. "So what is your rationalization for being with me?"

"I get to test potions on you," Snape replied promptly. "Inventing the Wolfsbane Potion has certainly bolstered my reputation as a Potions Master. Also, you're good in bed."

"And which is more important?" Lupin asked with a grin.

"Which do you think, you idiot werewolf?"

"Well, you haven't made any alterations to the Wolfsbane Potion in quite some time, so I think maybe I ought to brush up on my bedroom skills."

"A wise decision, Lupin."

"Which would require a great deal of practice..."

Snape was about to suggest that they go home and get some practice right now, when the four Aurors appeared. Dawlish scowled at them, and Lupin smiled back at him cheerily, still clinging to Snape's arm, which caused the Auror's scowl to deepen. Snape didn't normally care for public displays of affection, but since it seemed to be annoying Dawlish, he didn't push Lupin away. Or at least, that was his Slytherin rationalization for it.

"Imogen will live, although she doesn't seem very happy about it," Tonks informed them. "When she's recovered, she'll be transferred to Azkaban, and I expect she'll be sentenced to life in prison. And since she's a werewolf now, I suppose the prison will have to obtain a supply of Wolfsbane Potion." She and Shacklebolt gazed expectantly at Snape.

"I'll make it," Snape said, since he did still feel a lingering sense of responsibility for Imogen. But it was against his principles to do a favor for the Ministry without recompense, so he added, "For a nominal fee, of course. It is an expensive and time-consuming potion to make, after all."

"The Wolfsbane Potion Distribution Program provides the potion at Ministry expense for any werewolf who needs it, so we can submit your expenses to that account," Shacklebolt said. "I don't see any problem with that, do you, Richard?"

When Dawlish looked as though he were about to balk at that suggestion, Tonks added, "Imogen will be a danger to herself and the guards during the full moon if she is denied the potion."

"Oh, very well," Dawlish conceded with ill grace, then muttered under his breath, "Although it's not as if he doesn't make it for Lupin every month anyway."

"We're going to Azkaban to interview Walden Macnair," Tonks told Snape. 

"We know now that he was behind the whole thing, although since he's already serving a life sentence, there's not much more that we can do to him," Dawlish grumbled. "The bastard ought to be executed, but unfortunately, Arthur doesn't believe in that sort of thing."

"For once, you and I agree on something," Snape said grimly, and the Auror gave him a faint smile of grudging respect.

"Did you want to come with us?" Tonks asked. "Seeing as how Warren and Imogen were your students and all..."

"Yes," Snape replied, and Lupin squeezed his arm and leaned over to whisper into his ear.

"Please don't kill him, Severus, no matter how much he deserves it. I would be quite desolate if you were sentenced to Azkaban for murder, and I was left to languish alone in our bed at nights."

That thought was enough to keep Snape from doing anything foolish. He certainly wasn't about to give anyone the chance to replace him in bed with Lupin. Not that he doubted Lupin's faithfulness, but the werewolf was more attractive than he realized, and there were any number of lecherous individuals who might try to take advantage of Lupin's good nature and Gryffindor naivete.

"Very well, Lupin," Snape said, as if humoring his lover, and Lupin smiled and gave him a little wink.

*** 

"Greyback is dead," Dawlish bluntly told Macnair when they arrived at Azkaban. "We know that you were behind all the recent murders."

Macnair looked shaken, but still tried to bluster, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"It's over, Macnair!" Dawlish snapped. "Your daughter confessed everything! You had your children free Greyback in order to frame your bastard son for murder!"

Macnair turned pale, but retorted, "My children would never betray me!"

Shacklebolt gave him a hard and cold look. "She didn't intend to betray you, but she was near death, hysterical with pain and grief, and she was ranting and raving about how your bastard son destroyed the Macnair family."

"Near death?" Macnair gasped, clutching at the bars of his cell door for support. "You're lying!" he shouted, his eyes turning to stare pleadingly at Snape to deny Shacklebolt's statement.

"It's true," Snape told him coldly. "Greyback is dead, killed by Cyril Lukas Diggory, leader of the werewolves. Before he died, he bit Imogen--"

"No!" Macnair screamed. "They made an Unbreakable Vow!"

"Greyback was dying, anyway; he didn't care what the Vow would do to him," Snape said. "But he didn't do it to hurt Imogen; he did it to save her. She was mortally wounded in combat, and would have died if he hadn't bitten her. Apparently he was in love with her. He cared more for her safety than you did, Walden."

"No! It's not true; you're lying to trick me!"

"Warren is dead, too," Snape continued, relentlessly and mercilessly. "Ironically enough, he was slain by a rebounded Killing Curse that he cast himself. He was trying to kill the Boy Who Lived, who continues to live up to his reputation, it seems."

"Liar!"

"Here's your proof," Dawlish said, holding up photographs that had been taken of Greyback's and Warren's bodies. "And your daughter will be joining you in Azkaban soon enough, so you'll be able to see for yourself that we're telling the truth."

"No," Macnair whispered, but his shoulders slumped and Snape could see the defeat in his face as tears welled in his eyes and slowly slid down his cheeks. "My son...dead? And my beautiful daughter turned into a beast?"

"Oh, and by the way, your illegitimate son, Ash Randolf, formerly Ethan Madley, is alive and well," Dawlish taunted. "Perhaps he'll even be awarded your estate, now that all the other Macnairs are dead or incarcerated."

"You did this, you traitor!" Macnair screamed, throwing himself against the cell door like a wild animal in a frenzy, trying to reach at Snape through the bars. "You killed my son, destroyed my family!"

Snape quickly took a few steps back as Macnair screamed in frustration. "No, you did that all on your own, Walden," he said contemptuously. "Your son and daughter were, if not exactly innocent, not guilty of any crimes, either. You could have left them alone to live their lives in peace and freedom. They were being ostracized, true, but they were young and the public is fickle. If they were careful to keep a low profile and flatter the right people, eventually they would have been accepted back into society again. I had some respect for you once, Walden, because despite all your other faults, I thought that you sincerely cared about your children."

"I do!" Macnair sobbed in protest. "They're my own flesh and blood, my beloved son and daughter!"

"If they're so precious to you, why did you sacrifice them for the sake of your own pride?" Snape snarled at him in disgust. "To eliminate an illegitimate son who had no idea that you were his father, whose mother had not spoken to you in nearly three decades?"

"But that article came out in the Prophet!" Macnair wailed. "I thought someone might notice the resemblance, or that Rosalind would reveal my identity!"

"So you risked the lives of your children in order to protect your reputation?!" Potter demanded before Snape had a chance to continue berating Macnair. "A father is supposed to protect his children!" 

The boy's green eyes were filled with fury and outrage, and at first, Snape was startled that Potter was feeling such outrage on behalf of a couple of Slytherins, particularly ones who had proven themselves to be cold-blooded murderers. But then he remembered that Potter's parents had sacrificed themselves for him, and despite the hardships of his childhood, he had somehow retained a sense of innocence and idealism. A parent who would use and sacrifice his children as Macnair had probably seemed like an abomination to the boy.

"How dare you judge me, boy?!" Macnair screamed, with such force that spittle flew from his mouth. "If you had died as you should have that night in Godric's Hollow, then my children would still be safe and unharmed! We would be ruling the wizarding world at the Dark Lord's side!"

"It's always someone else's fault, isn't it, Walden?" Snape sneered. "Mine, Potter's, Dumbledore's, the Aurors', maybe even the Dark Lord's for allowing himself to be killed by a mere boy. Well, take a look in the mirror, Walden! You sent your children, talented mages but untested in real combat, to work with a werewolf whom you knew to be a homicidal maniac! Never mind the risk of them being arrested or killed by Aurors--did it ever occur to you that Greyback might lose control and attack them in spite of the Unbreakable Vow? He couldn't control himself when he was a Death Eater, not even when the moon wasn't full! And you entrusted your children to him!"

"You should have left well enough alone, Macnair," Lupin said quietly. "At worst, you would have suffered the embarrassment of having an illegitimate werewolf son become public knowledge, but at least Warren and Imogen would have been alive and well."

Macnair fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands. "What have I done?" he sobbed brokenly. "Warren, my loyal son...and Imogen, my clever little girl...please forgive me!"

Snape, Lupin, and the Aurors left him sobbing on the floor of his cell. "Well, I take it back," Dawlish said, solemnly but with a certain sense of satisfaction. "I believe that letting him live is a worse punishment than execution."

"I agree," Snape said, but whatever satisfaction he might have taken in Macnair's misery was canceled out by the knowledge that he had been unable to save Warren and Imogen. 

Lupin gently took Snape's hand and gave him a sad, understanding smile. "Shall we return home now, Severus?"

"Yes," Snape said, lacing his fingers through Lupin's, drawing comfort from his lover's touch. "Let us return home and await the arrival of the newest addition to the Diggory family."


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Narcissa gives birth, and Tsubasa's parents show up for a visit. Also, both the teachers and the students get up to a little mischief when school ends.

Early the next morning, Snape and Lupin were woken by an owl delivering a message that Narcissa had given birth to a healthy baby boy, and that mother and baby were doing fine.

"That's nice," Snape mumbled, and rolled over to go back to sleep.

"Severus!" Lupin exclaimed, yanking the covers off of him. "How can you sleep at a time like this? Don't you want to go see the baby?"

"No," Snape replied grumpily, sensing that his chances of returning to slumber were rapidly decreasing. Lupin had been pacing their quarters all last night, as anxious as a child on a Christmas Eve, and had only reluctantly gone to bed at midnight at Snape's insistence. A stranger might have suspected that he was the father of the baby instead of Lukas.

"If you've seen one baby, you've seen them all," Snape continued. "They're noisy, messy creatures, always squalling and spitting up and dirtying their diapers." He pulled the blanket up over his head. "Check back with me in another ten years, when the child might reasonably be expected to carry on an intelligent conversation, and I can determine whether or not he is a worthy candidate for Slytherin House."

"Severus!" Lupin shouting, snatching the blanket back, and Snape sighed in resignation.

"You do realize that visiting hours at St. Mungo's don't start for another..." He blearily glanced at the clock on the wall. "...two and a half hours?"

"We're war heroes," Lupin replied confidently. "I'm sure that they'll make an exception for us. And besides, we're practically family. In fact, we are family--or at least you are. I'm sure that there's a Malfoy somewhere on the Snape family tree."

"I'm sure there is, considering how inbred the purebloods are," Snape sighed. "Although I don't think that second cousins several times removed really falls under the definition of 'immediate family'." Lupin opened his mouth to resume arguing and Snape held up a hand to stop him, saying, "All right, but at least let me have some breakfast first. Besides, I'm sure that Narcissa will be tired after such a long delivery, and we should give her a chance to rest."

"You're right," Lupin admitted a bit guiltily. "I didn't stop to think that Narcissa might not be up to receiving visitors, although the note says that she's fine. Still, I guess that it would be a little rude to drop in unannounced so early."

Snape noted sourly that Lupin didn't seem to think it was rude to deny a cranky Potions Master his beauty sleep or his breakfast. "The baby's not going anywhere, Lupin," he said huffily. "It will still be there in an hour or two."

Lupin grinned and leaned over to kiss Snape on the tip of his nose, which only caused Snape to scowl at him even more blackly. "Sorry, Sev," Lupin apologized. "I guess I'm just excited about the baby."

"Merlin only knows what you're going to be like when Branwen has her baby," Snape grumbled.

"Oh, I can't wait to be 'Uncle Remus'!" Lupin laughed. "Be honest; aren't you looking forward, at least a little bit, to being 'Uncle Severus'?"

"No," Snape replied firmly. "And if it's up to Black, the child will probably be calling me 'Uncle Greasy Git'."

"You know that Branwen wouldn't let him do that," Lupin chided good-naturedly. "And besides, Sirius doesn't hate you anymore. But I'm sorry for waking you, Severus. Did you want to go back to sleep for a bit?"

"I'm already awake," Snape said irritably. "So we might as well go down to the kitchen and get something to eat."

"Well, as you pointed out we do have more than two hours till visiting hours start," Lupin purred as he ran his hand down Snape's chest. "Perhaps I can think of something to entertain you in the meantime, hmm?"

"In that case, I think that breakfast can wait," Snape said, wrapping his arms around Lupin and pulling him close. "After all, I do believe that you owe me some 'entertainment' for waking me up at such an ungodly hour."

"Then I'll do my best to make it up to you--and to help you work up an appetite," Lupin said with a grin.

*** 

So they arrived at St. Mungo's during official visiting hours, making a brief stop at the gift shop to buy some flowers and a teddy bear for the mother and new baby, respectively, before heading to Narcissa's hospital room.

Narcissa was lying in bed, looking tired but radiant as Aileen and the female werewolves fussed over her, helping her to fix her hair--every golden ringlet was perfectly in place, despite the fact that she'd given birth only a few hours ago--and urging her to eat her breakfast to "keep up your strength". 

Andromeda just patted her on the shoulder and said, "You've done well, Cissy."

"Indeed," Branwen said; she also must have spent the night at the hospital, because she looked tired but proud, smiling at her former student in a motherly fashion. "You've given birth to a fine son, Narcissa."

"Let me take a look at him," Lupin said eagerly, and Lukas rose up out of a chair beside his wife's bed. He was grinning from ear to ear as he very gently and tenderly cradled a swaddled baby in his arms. Only the baby's face was visible within the bundle of Slytherin-green flannel blankets, but Lupin could see that little Cedric Drake had downy golden hair the exact same color as Narcissa's, and that his eyes were the same odd shade of yellow-green as his father's.

"He's beautiful," Lupin said, and Lukas's grin impossibly seemed to grow even wider.

"He looks just like his dad!" The young werewolf Kai said proudly, slapping his pack leader on the back.

"But he looks like Mum, too," Draco added loyally, grinning almost as widely as his stepfather. He was holding a box of chocolate cigars from Honeyduke's, and offered one to Lupin. He chuckled as he accepted the candy, and Draco whispered, "We can't pass out real ones because Mum hates the smell of smoke, and she says it would be bad for the baby."

"Your mother is right," Lupin assured him, peeling the "It's a boy!" wrapper off the cigar. "And I much prefer chocolate to tobacco, anyway." He winked at his lover. "And I'm sure Severus does, too."

Severus gave him a haughty look that seemed to imply Lupin was offending his dignity with such a remark, never mind that everyone in Slytherin knew about Professor Snape's sweet tooth. Then he accepted a cigar from Draco graciously, as if he were doing the boy a favor, and politely congratulated Narcissa and Lukas on the birth of their son.

"Thanks," Lukas said, cooing at the baby as Cedric laughed and waved at him with a small, chubby hand. 

Fortunately, since his attention was focused on the baby, he didn't notice the incredulous and slightly pained expression on Severus's face, although Lupin did. He smiled, because he didn't need Legilimency to read his lover's thoughts: "How pathetic, to see the fierce werewolf leader reduced to making goo-goo noises at a mewling infant." Or maybe he was thinking it about the entire pack, since the male werewolves were clustered around their leader, smiling just as dotingly at the newest addition to the pack.

Lukas looked up and frowned slightly as he added, "I'm a little worried about his eyes, though. They're yellowish, like mine, and I'm afraid that might mean he's a werewolf."

"Mr. Kimura said it didn't necessarily mean that," Branwen said with an air of patience that made it clear she had repeated this reassurance several times before. "Eye color is not an indicator of lycanthropy. No one in your pack has yellow eyes except for you."

"And anyway, they're more green than yellow," Draco chimed in.

"I thought maybe I was different because I have inherited lycanthropy, and the others were infected through bites," Lukas said.

"I have inherited lycanthropy and my eyes are blue," Lupin pointed out. "The only other werewolf I've known who has yellow eyes was Greyback."

"Oh, that's reassuring, Remus," Lukas replied sarcastically. "Thanks a lot."

"Oh, don't borrow trouble, Lukas," Aileen said impatiently. "Just be grateful that the baby is healthy. There's no need to go inventing problems that don't exist yet."

"But it is possible that he could have inherited my curse," Lukas insisted.

"It doesn't matter," Narcissa said serenely, holding out her arms for the baby. Lukas deposited Cedric in them, and Narcissa planted a gentle kiss on her son's forehead. "He's perfect, werewolf or not. If he does have lycanthropy, then he'll just have to take the Wolfsbane Potion like you and the rest of the pack. Perhaps it won't always be easy, but he won't have to suffer the same hardships that you did. And besides, he has Black blood flowing through his veins; he will be strong enough to handle whatever difficulties that arise."

"Diggory blood, too," Lukas reminded her, leaning down to kiss his wife and then his son.

"And Diggory blood, too," Narcissa agreed. "You and your father were certainly brave enough, as was our baby's namesake, and Gwendolyn has a strong spirit, too. A pity those traits skipped over Amos, though."

"Let's not mention the bastard's name on such a happy occasion," Lukas grumbled.

"Don't swear around the baby, dear," Narcissa scolded, but dropped the subject as everyone (except, of course, Severus) gathered around to admire little Cedric and exclaim over how adorable he was. Severus was remarkably patient under the circumstances, and even managed to refrain from rolling his eyes, but he promptly declared their visit at an end when Cedric began to fuss and Narcissa said it was time to feed him.

"I can't wait till we have grandchildren of our own, Severus," Lupin said happily when they returned to Hogwarts.

"I don't think that Theodore and Blaise will be having any babies in the near future, Lupin," Severus said dryly.

"No, but Theodore will probably adopt an heir eventually," Lupin replied with a smile. "It would make Lady Selima happy, and he takes his duties as your heir seriously."

"True," Severus agreed. "But I imagine that it will be some time before he feels ready to become a parent, and probably even longer before he can find a prospective heir that will meet my mother's exacting standards. Pureblood orphans don't grow on trees, you know."

"Perhaps she can be persuaded to accept a mixed-blood child," Lupin suggested.

"Not likely," Severus scoffed. "But then again, I never thought that she'd accept you into the family, either."

"I rest my case," Lupin laughed. "But I doubt that we'll have to wait for Theodore to give us a grandchild. Dylan and Hermione will probably get married and begin raising a family in a few years."

"Just what I need," Severus groaned. "A passel of bushy-haired, know-it-all little brats!"

"I don't think that Hermione was planning on raising a Weasley-sized brood," Lupin pointed out with a grin. "Besides, those hypothetical grandchildren might take after Dylan."

"I certainly hope so!" Severus declared adamantly, scowling fiercely as if he could shape his future grandchildren into proper Slytherins by sheer force of will. Lupin just laughed and kissed his lover, knowing that Severus would love the children even if they turned out to be bushy-haired Gryffindors.

*** 

Lukas took a temporary leave of absence to look after his wife and son, while Tsubasa took over his Physical Defense classes, and life at Hogwarts gradually began to settle back into a normal routine. There was an initial flurry of publicity before the excitement died down, but for once that worked in their favor, since it eased the public's fears to know that the "werewolf murderer" had finally been caught.

Snape grudgingly admitted to himself that Arthur Weasley was exhibiting a remarkable amount of political savvy for an idealistic Gryffindor. It was mostly due to advice from Lady Selima, Erika Dietrich, and Dawlish, but the fact that he was following their advice at all showed that he had gained some practicality and common sense since becoming Minister of Magic--traits that he had seriously been lacking in before.

By giving Rita Skeeter an exclusive interview, he was able to play down the fact that the killings had indeed been committed by a werewolf, and play up the fact that the Ministry had brought to justice a long-lost Death Eater. (Although Arthur generously gave most of the credit to the Aurors and Lukas, while his predecessor, Cornelius Fudge, would have kept the glory for himself.) 

He would also have named Snape and Lupin as heroes, but they asked that he play down their roles in the matter, due to modesty on Lupin's part and an aversion to publicity on Snape's. At Snape's request, though, Henry was given credit for his help in tracking down Greyback, which pleased his future in-laws and made them a little more amenable to Erika marrying an otherwise unimportant scholar--though Snape had no doubt that Miss Dietrich would have forced her family to accept her choice of husband even without the Daily Prophet's endorsement. She was a strong-willed young woman, and after all, Henry was pureblooded and of reasonably good family, even if he was somewhat lacking in political achievements.

Another bit of good publicity unexpectedly resulted from a morbid situation when the Ministry examined the remains of the Inferi. Most of them turned out to be Muggles, as Snape had suspected, but a few of the older corpses were wizards who had vanished during the first war. One of them was Caradoc Dearborn, a member of the first Order of the Phoenix; he was identified by the family crest on his ring. The ring had been enchanted with a minor protective charm which had not been strong enough to save its owner, but had managed to prevent the ring from being melted into slag when Snape had been forced to incinerate Dearborn's corpse.

The Dearborns were purebloods of high rank, and Caradoc himself had been a popular man, respected and well-liked in the wizarding world. His family had long suspected that he was dead, of course, but they were relieved to finally know the truth and be able to lay their loved one to rest. Caradoc was given a hero's funeral, and the Ministry received credit for bringing him and the other fallen wizards home to their families. Along with Greyback's death, this provided a sense of closure to the public, reassuring them that the war was finally over and that they could live without fear of the Death Eaters. 

"A happily ever after ending," Selima somewhat cynically told her son.

In short, Arthur Weasley was made out to be a hero in the press, and his modest demurrals to the contrary only made him seem even more noble. The fickle public adored him once again; the Ministry sycophants went back to currying favor, insisting that they had believed in him all along; and all talk of restoring the anti-werewolf legislation ceased, at least for the moment.

By early December, the publicity was dying down, and the students and staff at Hogwarts were preparing for Christmas. Lupin had volunteered to help decorate the castle and was thoroughly enjoying himself; the students were looking forward to the holidays; and Snape was looking forward to spoiling their pleasure a bit with end-of-term exams. So everyone was happy--at least until the less competent of Snape's students received their grades.

Ash was still staying in the castle with Tsubasa although the danger had passed, and neither of them showed any inclination to have him move out. Laura Madley seemed reassured by her half-brother's presence, and while she was obviously still grieving for her parents, she was no longer prone to bursting into tears without warning--much to Snape's relief--and her work in Potions class became steady and reliable once again.

However, that comfortable, familiar routine was interrupted one morning when they were having breakfast in the Great Hall. It started off as a day like any other, with a bored Snape only half-paying attention to Lupin's inane chatter with Ash about Cedric Drake; both werewolves were enamored of the infant, a fact that Snape found somewhat puzzling--after all, babies did little other than eat, sleep, cry, and dirty their diapers. What was there to get so excited about? 

Personally, he thought that taking in Dylan and Theodore as teenagers had worked out much better; they had been old enough to carry on an intelligent conversation, and didn't wake their parents up at two in the morning demanding to be fed. Well, there had been a few times when Theodore had woken them up with his nightmares, but that was understandable, considering everything that he'd gone through during the war. Overall, having two intelligent, well-behaved (well, mostly) teenage sons was certainly preferable to dealing with a mewling infant, at least in Snape's opinion.

Then he frowned uneasily. Lupin was prone to bringing home strays: his pet rat, Kiseki, and Cabal, the mongrel dog that Williamson and Amos had used in the staged werewolf attacks. Snape conveniently chose to overlook the little detail that he was the one who had given the rat to Lupin; the softhearted werewolf had accepted the creature easily enough, and he would probably have adopted it on his own, given the opportunity.

Now, a rat was fairly unobtrusive, and the dog was tolerable, although it got underfoot at times, but a baby was quite another story! Snape wondered if he ought to keep an eye on Lupin to make sure that he didn't bring home an orphaned baby one day. 

Just then, Filch ran up to the Head Table and whispered something to Dumbledore about unexpected visitors. The Headmaster just smiled, his eyes twinkling merrily, and said, "Well then, please send them in, Argus."

Filch left and returned a few minutes later with a couple that Snape vaguely recognized: Tsubasa's parents, Yokuto of the crane clan and his wife Reiko. He and Lupin had met them briefly at Chizuru's and Karasu's wedding, although they had not spoken beyond exchanging polite greetings. 

Yokuto made his way down the center aisle of the hall with a stately grace, looking as elegant and regal as the late Lucius Malfoy at his best, minus the arrogance. His hair fell unbound to his waist like a stream of black silk, and the streaks of gray amidst the black served to give him an air of dignity, rather than detracting from his beauty. He was clad in a long kimono of dark blue silk embroidered with an intricate pattern of snowflakes in glittering silver thread, which seemed to highlight and complement the gray in his hair. He seemed to glide rather than walk down the hall, moving with the same easy grace that his son did, although without that faint air of suppressed menace that Tsubasa had. The son moved like a warrior, and the father more like a dancer.

Reiko walked beside her husband, an amused smile on her face. She was also clad in a kimono, dyed a lighter of shade of blue-green, embroidered with a whimsical design of fishes and seashells. By normal human standards, she was an attractive woman, but she could not help but look like a sparrow next to a peacock in comparison to her husband's unearthly beauty. If this bothered her, she showed no sign of it; she seemed confident and at ease, and the two of them radiated an air of harmony that only developed between couples who had been living together for many years. 

Snape glanced at his lover, who was gazing at the visitors with a look of gleeful curiosity in his eyes, and Snape thought to himself that perhaps he and Lupin had begun to achieve that sort of harmony themselves. They still argued at times, of course, but those arguments were playful (well, mostly), and felt as comfortable and familiar as a well-worn pair of slippers.

The couple stopped at the Head Table and bowed politely. "I apologize for the intrusion, Headmaster," Yokuto said.

Dumbledore rose to his feet and bowed in return. "Not at all," he replied genially. "It is a pleasure to see you again, and the families of the staff are always welcome to visit."

"You are most gracious, Headmaster," Reiko said. "Thank you for looking after our son."

"Oh, it is we who are honored to have him here," Dumbledore protested good-naturedly. "The students are learning a great deal from him, and his assistance has proved invaluable. Our Physical Defense instructor, Master Diggory, is out on...ah...paternity leave, and Professor Tsubasa has kindly consented to take over his classes until he returns." 

He took out his wand and conjured up a couple of extra chairs and place settings, and the table lengthened slightly, leaving just enough space to seat two people between Tsubasa and Lupin. "Please, you must join us for breakfast."

Yokuto politely protested that they couldn't possibly impose on the Headmaster's hospitality, and Dumbledore insisted, with equal politeness, that it was no imposition at all. It seemed to be a sort of ritual act of courtesy, because after a couple more token protests and reassurances, Yokuto happily took a seat at the Head Table next to his son, and Reiko followed suit, still looking amused.

Ash was looking a little panicky about the sudden appearance of his lover's parents; he had the look of a wild animal about to bolt at the sight of danger. Tsubasa, on the other hand, looked more chagrined than nervous. "Dad!" he hissed quietly. "What are you doing here?!"

"Why, I have come to visit my son, of course," Yokuto replied innocently. He appeared to be speaking at a normal volume, but his voice was actually carefully pitched to carry to the rest of the room, a trick that many public speakers learned, although the lazier ones simply used magic (or in the case of Muggles, microphones and speakers) to amplify their voices.

"According to the Daily Prophet, the killers were apprehended; Mr. Randolf's name has been cleared; and peace has been restored to the British wizarding world," Yokuto continued, then paused to sigh dramatically. "And yet you still have not seen fit to bring your mate home to meet your parents."

"Father, please," Tsubasa protested in a strained voice as the students gasped and began to gossip excitedly. "For one thing, I have a full-time job; I haven't had time to go home for a visit. And for another, I would prefer not to discuss my personal life in front of the entire school!"

"S-sir," Ash stammered, jumping to his feet and bowing awkwardly towards Yokuto. "We--I--apologize. Tsubasa told me that you were working to offer shelter to the pack in case we needed it. I should have gone to express my gratitude to you in person, or at least written..."

Yokuto beamed at him, then rose from his seat to walk over to the werewolf, who took an involuntary step backwards before he forced himself to stop and stand his ground. "Nonsense," Yokuto said. "It is natural for family to help one another, and there is no need for thanks."

"F-family?" Ash stuttered.

"Welcome to the family, my son," Yokuto said warmly, and embraced the startled werewolf, whose eyes went wide with shock. Tsubasa sighed heavily and shook his head. 

"There, there, sweetie," Reiko said soothingly, reaching over to pat him on the shoulder. "You know how your father is. I tried to stop him, but once he has his mind set on something..."

"So when is the wedding?" Yokuto asked cheerfully, and Tsubasa groaned, burying his face in his hands.

*** 

Ash was too stunned to reply to Yokuto's question, but the Headmaster filled the silence by offering them the use of the antechamber behind the Great Hall so that they could have some privacy--a little too late, Ash couldn't help but think, as the students were already in an uproar. The teachers also looked like they were eager to start gossiping, but at least they were polite enough to restrain themselves until Ash and Tsubasa and his parents left the room.

Lupin grinned and winked in a way that Ash supposed was meant to be encouraging, but he still felt a bit apprehensive in spite of Yokuto's declaration that he was "family". He had been told that Tsubasa's father was the crane clan's representative to the Japanese Wizards' Council, the equivalent of an ambassador and a Ministry Department Head rolled into one. Would he really allow his son to marry a scruffy, not quite penniless werewolf of dubious pedigree?

"Can we even get married?" Ash blurted out, although he hadn't meant to speak the thought aloud. "Is it legal in your country? I mean, for two men to get married, because it's certainly not legal in Britain." Assuming that Tsubasa even wanted to marry him, which maybe was assuming too much. They were still living together, but they had been taking things slowly, one day at a time, without discussing commitments or plans for the future.

"Oh, same-sex marriage is not yet legal in Japan, in either the wizarding or Muggle communities," Yokuto replied casually. "But the crane folk have no such prohibitions. The bond between lovers is sacred and can never be broken, save by death."

"The crane folk usually don't get married in the normal human sense of the word," Tsubasa interjected, still looking a little harried and unsettled by his father's unexpected visit, which did little to reassure Ash. "The bond between a crane and his or her mate is..." He hesitated, searching for the right words. "It's a sort of psychic and spiritual bond that cannot be denied, and cannot be broken except, as my father said, by death. So there is no need for marriage licenses among us; my people find the humans bewildering and pitiable, that they need pieces of paper and government sanctions in order to be bonded to their mates. When we find our mates, we simply know it in our hearts." 

Tsubasa smiled with wry self-deprecation. "Although it takes some of us longer than others to recognize it. So we generally don't make a big fuss with wedding ceremonies, except for the nobles, like when Princess Chizuru married Lord Karasu. It was necessary then to have a big ceremony, in order to properly seal the alliance between our two clans."

"And Yokuto and I had a more-or-less traditional wedding ceremony back home in the States because my mother would have killed me if I got married without her there," Reiko added with a smile.

"And I wanted to do my best to please Reiko's parents, since they weren't exactly thrilled to hear that their nineteen-year-old daughter was planning to marry an older widower who already had a child," Yokuto chimed in. "Not to mention that I wasn't entirely human, although that part didn't bother them as much as the 'older widower with a child' thing."

"Oh, you won them over quickly enough, my love," Reiko laughed. "It's that famous crane charm and charisma. The non-human thing actually reassured them once they got over the initial shock, because the devotion of the crane folk to their mates is legendary. They would never have to worry that you might cheat on me or divorce me."

"But actually, I think it was Tsubasa who won your parents over," Yokuto pointed out. 

"True," Reiko admitted. "Even though they were rather disapproving of you at first, they were immediately charmed by Tsubasa. And within three days' time, they were insisting that he call them 'Grandma' and 'Grandpa'."

Tsubasa gave his parents a slightly exasperated but also fond look, as if this was an often-repeated family story. He coughed politely to interrupt their reminiscence, then continued his lecture. 

"Yes, when a crane marries a human, they will often have a formal wedding for the sake of the human partner's family. However, for the most part, the couple will simply move in together without much fanfare, and their families and friends might throw a small, casual party in their honor to celebrate." He gave his father a pointed look. "The operative words being 'small' and 'casual'."

Yokuto gave him an equally pointed look back. "And when may Reiko and I expect to throw you and your wolf a small and casual party?"

"My 'wolf' does have a name, you know," Tsubasa said irritably, avoiding the question.

"I beg your pardon," Yokuto said, turning to bow to Ash. "I have been unforgivably rude. Allow me to formally introduce myself, although you have no doubt already guessed my identity. I am Yokuto of the crane clan, Tsubasa's father, and this is my wife, Reiko."

Instead of bowing, Reiko extended her hand, saying with a friendly smile, "I'm so pleased to finally be able to meet you, Ash. It is all right if I call you 'Ash'?"

"Yes, of course, please do," Ash replied, cautiously shaking her hand. "I'm Ash Randolf, Tsubasa's...um...er...friend?" He settled somewhat uncertainly on the word "friend" after considering and discarding a few other possibilities, making it more of a question than a statement.

"Mate," Yokuto corrected, kindly but firmly.

"Um...er...begging your pardon, sir, but isn't that up to Tsubasa?" Ash asked diffidently.

"Well, son, do you love Ash?" Yokuto demanded.

Tsubasa sighed in resignation. "Of course," he said, reaching out to take Ash by the hand. "It's just that he's...I mean, we've been through a lot these past few months. I just wanted to let things calm down before we started talking about weddings or parties. Ash lost his parents and gained a new sister; he has other things going on in his life besides me, you know."

Yokuto looked slightly abashed, though not entirely contrite, and he bowed again and murmured, "Forgive me, Ash; I did not mean to make light of your losses."

But Ash was not at all offended. His mind was still lingering on Tsubasa's firm reply, "Of course." The knowledge that Tsubasa loved him made him feel relieved and exhilarated at the same time, almost giddy--a light, bubbly feeling, as if he'd consumed a bottle of champagne, as opposed to the numbness brought on by his usual overindulgence of Firewhiskey.

"It's all right," Ash said. "I've gotten through everything thanks to Tsubasa." He smiled at his lover and squeezed his hand; Tsubasa smiled back at him. "I was pretty messed up even before all this happened, and I didn't really know what I wanted. But I know beyond a doubt now that I want to be with Tsubasa."

"As in permanently?" Yokuto asked hopefully.

Tsubasa rolled his eyes but laughed, and Ash replied with a grin, "Yes, or at least as long as he'll have me."

"Then I will have you forever, Ash," Tsubasa declared, then smiled at his father. "Well, are you happy now, Dad?"

"My happiness lies in seeing you happy, my son," Yokuto said, with an air of slightly offended dignity, then ruined the effect by grinning as eagerly as a child on Christmas Eve who couldn't wait to open the presents under the tree. "So shall we start planning the celebration?"

*** 

So somehow Ash found himself caught up in the whirlwind of his future father-in-law's enthusiasm as they began planning the not-quite-a-wedding ceremony. All the werewolves had to be invited, of course, along with Laura, and Takeshi and his family. There were also Ash's friends at the Ministry--Arthur in particular would probably be hurt if he wasn't invited--and Snape and Lupin. The latter two were actually more Lukas's friends than Ash's, but they had shown up to help rescue him, after all. And, after some debate, it was decided that Tsubasa's tengu friends should also be invited, so as not to offend anyone, even though they might not want to make the trip from Japan.

"Although Merlin help us if they do," Tsubasa said, only half-jokingly. "The tengu get rowdy when they party, and so do the werewolves, and I shudder to think what might happen when you combine both of them along with a significant amount of alcohol." 

"Perhaps we could make it an alcohol-free celebration, sweetie," Reiko suggested.

"It doesn't matter," Tsubasa replied with a wry smile. "The tengu will bring their own, and I suspect the werewolves will, too."

"You can't have a party without alcohol," Ash automatically protested, although in truth, it didn't seem as important now, when he felt intoxicated with happiness without having touched a single drop of liquor. 

The Headmaster offered to let them hold the celebration at Hogwarts, but the thought of a public ceremony in front of the entire school, like Lukas's wedding, was much too daunting for Ash, and Tsubasa wasn't crazy about the idea, either. 

When they went to tell Lukas the good news, he hugged Ash and slapped Tsubasa on the back, saying, "Well, it's about time!" Then he offered the use of Diggory Manor for the party, which seemed like the perfect solution: it was large enough to hold all the guests, and familiar enough for Ash to feel at ease.

"So what exactly does this ceremony entail?" Ash asked nervously. "I don't have to walk down the aisle in a white dress and veil, do I?"

"I'm sure you'd make a lovely bride," his pack brother Kai quipped, then quickly jumped back as Ash growled and threw a not-very-playful blow his way--not quickly enough, though, because he yelped as Ash's fist connected with his shoulder.

"Not a dress, no," Yokuto chuckled. "As Tsubasa said, we don't normally have formal ceremonies. A simple declaration of vows, perhaps. If you like, you can use the traditional Western vows of 'to love and honor, till death do us part,' or just write your own." 

Ash stifled a groan, wondering if he was supposed to come up with something romantic and poetic, and his future father-in-law chuckled again. 

"It doesn't necessarily have to be anything fancy," Yokuto said reassuringly. "'I love you and I pledge to spend the rest of my life with you' is good enough. The only real marriage tradition we have is the exchange of lover's tokens."

"Lover's tokens?" Ash asked.

"Yes, among the crane folk, it is customary to weave a garment, usually a kimono, for one's mate," Yokuto replied.

"But I can't weave or sew," Ash groaned.

"Well, it's not expected of a human partner," Reiko said kindly. "Yokuto wove my bridal robe, and my gift to him was a wedding band. He also gave me one, since it's traditional for human couples to exchange rings." She grinned and winked at Ash. "I can't sew, either, so you needn't worry, Ash."

"The jade bracelet that Takeshi always wears is Aric's token to him," Tsubasa said comfortingly. "So you can get me a ring, a bracelet, a necklace--whatever you like, and I will wear it with pride." Ash still looked doubtful, and Tsubasa insisted, "You needn't be embarrassed. Actually..." He blushed slightly, smiling sheepishly. "I'm the one who should be embarrassed. I've made you a lover's token, sort of, but my weaving and sewing aren't very good..."

"What matters most is the love that is woven into the cloth," Yokuto said gently, although he looked rather smug when he heard that Tsubasa had already made the "lover's token". "If you made the garment with love, then you have nothing to be ashamed of."

"I'm sure it will be wonderful," Ash assured his lover.

"Yes, well...I think I'll just go put a few finishing touches on it," Tsubasa mumbled, his blush deepening, and hurried back to Hogwarts--incidentally leaving Ash behind with his parents.

"Um...is it really all right if I just give him a ring?" Ash asked them anxiously. "It seems so impersonal to just buy something when he's making a gift by hand for me. I've never even seen him wearing any jewelry."

"I wear this, for Reiko's sake," Yokuto said, holding up his left hand to display the gold band on his ring finger. "But for the most part, we don't wear jewelry, except maybe some hair ornaments for the women." He gave Ash an approving smile. "It speaks well of you that you wish to give something more personal to your mate."

"I do, but I'm not, well, very crafty or anything," Ash said miserably. "All I'm really good at is tinkering with Muggle devices." He was also good at stealing and pick-pocketing, but he didn't think that was something that he should admit to his future in-laws.

"Hmmm," Yokuto said thoughtfully, then brightened as an idea occurred to him. "Could you at least braid a few strands of cord together?"

"I guess so," Ash replied doubtfully. "What did you have in mind?"

"Have you noticed that Tsubasa always uses a cord to tie off his topknot?" Yokuto asked, and Ash nodded. When sparring or teaching his Physical Defense classes, Tsubasa would use a bit of plain cord or a strip of leather to tie back his hair, and when he was at ease, he would use a more elaborate silk cord, usually dyed to match the color of his kimono. His favorite seemed to be one made of bright gold silk.

"If you will let me have some of your hair, I shall weave it into a length of thread, and then you can braid it together with some silk to make a hair-tie for Tsubasa," Yokuto continued, sounding pleased with his cleverness. "It will be personal, since it will be made with your hands and have a bit of you in it, and it is also a practical gift that he will be able to put to good use."

"A perfect solution," Reiko said, her eyes sparkling with merriment as she applauded her husband, and the werewolves voiced their approval as well.

"I know that you can weave feathers into silk, but I didn't know that you could do that with hair, too," Ash said, a little startled.

"Well, it will not quite be silk," Yokuto said with a smile. "But your hair should make a strong and sturdy thread: a good symbol for an enduring marriage. So if you will allow me..."

The next part was rather painful, since it involved Yokuto plucking quite a bit of hair from Ash's head before he was satisfied that he had enough, but Ash endured it stoically. He had suffered far worse in the past, after all, and it would hardly impress his future in-laws if he started whimpering like a puppy over a bit of pulled hair.

Yokuto and Reiko had planned to rent a room at the Leaky Cauldron while they were in Britain, but Lukas and Narcissa invited them to stay at the Manor, and they accepted with gratitude. They all had dinner together that night, and Yokuto invited Ash to stay for a nightcap, saying that he wanted to spend some time in private getting to know his future son-in-law. Ash's packmates grinned gleefully, delighted to be in on the little conspiracy, but fortunately, Tsubasa was too distracted with his own plans to be suspicious. He gratefully left Ash in his father's hands and returned to the castle to continue his "finishing touches" on Ash's gift.

Yokuto presented Ash with three lengths of thick, heavy thread: two of gold silk, and the brown and gray one that was made from Ash's own hair. Braiding the three together to make a single cord was simple enough even for Ash's limited skills. He had thought that his hair would look shabby intertwined with the fine silk, but strangely enough, it didn't. Maybe his hair had acquired a bit of luster through Yokuto's magic: the brown had a warm glow to it, like polished mahogany, and the gray gleamed, looking more like silver, so it actually made a pleasing complement to the gold thread. When Ash had finished braiding the cord, Yokuto attached a couple of gold beads to the ends, which made it look even fancier. It actually looked like a gift worthy of his beautiful lover.

"Thank you, sir," Ash told Yokuto, his voice trembling slightly with gratitude.

"No thanks are needed," Yokuto replied kindly, patting him on the shoulder. "You are part of our family now, Ash, and it is only natural for family to help each other out."

Tears stung Ash's eyes, but he managed to hold them in check. Tsubasa had assured him that his parents would accept him as family, but he had not quite believed it. It was a little strange for an outcast werewolf to suddenly have so many people wanting to claim him as family--first Laura, and now Tsubasa's parents.

"Thank you, sir," Ash repeated, in a voice hoarse with emotion. "I mean...I'm glad that you feel that way."

"And what's with this 'sir' business?" Yokuto demanded sternly, although his eyes twinkled with good humor. "Now that we have established that you are family, you must call me 'Father' or 'Dad'."

"Um...er...ah..." Ash stammered helplessly, as Yokuto stared at him expectantly and Reiko gave him an encouraging smile.

"Come now," Lukas said with a grin, slapping him on the back. "You don't want to offend your new father-in-law, now do you?"

"No, of course not," Ash said hastily. "I'm honored to be part of your family, er...Father." He managed to get the word out with some difficulty, finding the more formal "Father" slightly easier to say than "Dad".

Yokuto beamed, as if nothing could please him more than that simple declaration, and without warning, wrapped his arms around Ash in a firm embrace. "And we are delighted that you are now part of our family, son!"

"Um...thank you," Ash said weakly, wondering if he was supposed to return the embrace. He half-expected to wake up any second now and discover that this had all been a hallucination brought on by too much Firewhiskey.

His future mother-in-law seemed to understand how he felt, and she smiled at him sympathetically. "You must remember, dear, that this is all new to Ash," she gently chided her husband. "Please don't overwhelm him all at once."

Yokuto released Ash, laughing, "Please forgive me, son! It is just that I am overjoyed to finally see my son choose a mate! I had begun to despair of him ever finding his true love!"

Ash wondered if having a werewolf spouse was really preferable to remaining single for life; Yokuto apparently thought so. Perhaps he should feel a little insulted, but Ash only felt relieved that he was being accepted, even enthusiastically welcomed by Tsubasa's family, so he just smiled in response.

"Welcome to the family, dear," Reiko said, brushing a light kiss against Ash's cheek. "A slightly eccentric family, I'm afraid, but I hope you'll get used to us with time."

Ash burst into laughter, the last of his nervousness finally dissipating. "I can hardly call anyone else's family eccentric, considering that mine is a werewolf pack!"

"We'll be quite a blended family, then--wolf, crane, and human," Yokuto said cheerfully, and Ash began to feel that this whole getting married and gaining a family thing might actually work out, after all.

*** 

They decided--or rather, Yokuto decided--that they would hold the party that weekend, although it gave them only a few days' preparation time. "After all, we don't need much time to prepare, since it's only going to be a small, casual party," Yokuto said sweetly to his son.

"Whatever you say, Dad," Tsubasa gave in with a sigh of resignation.

There actually wasn't much for Ash and Tsubasa to do, since Narcissa and Yokuto pretty much took over the planning for the celebration--Yokuto with all the enthusiasm of a father eager to marry off his only child, and Narcissa with the smooth ease and efficiency of a pureblood wife who was used to organizing parties and playing the gracious hostess. She seemed very happy to help plan even a "wedding" as unconventional as this one, so perhaps she missed the fancy dinner parties she used to give as Lady Malfoy.

"Mum's in her element; she's missed throwing parties like these, I think," Draco confirmed with a grin as Narcissa conferred with Yokuto over a dinner menu; placed orders for flowers; and barked out imperious orders to the werewolves who were rearranging furniture in the main dining room where the party was to be held. Reiko baby-sat little Cedric while his mother worked, cradling him in her arms as she watched the proceedings with amusement. 

"Then perhaps we should give her a chance to throw more parties in the future," Lukas said, then grinned slyly at his stepson. "Better watch out, Draco; she'll be scheming to marry you off next."

"Oh, no!" Draco groaned. "You're not serious, are you? I'm way too young to get married!"

"In the old days, the purebloods used to get married, or at least betrothed, right after leaving Hogwarts," Ash pointed out with a bit mischievous glee, happy to have someone else on the hot seat for a change. "Besides, aren't things going well with you and that little Avery girl?"

Draco's pale cheeks flushed a bright red. "Well enough," he mumbled. "Although I can't see Sera much while she's at school. But she plans to apprentice at St. Mungo's and become a Healer after she leaves Hogwarts, so I don't think she'd want to get married right away."

"Ah, so you have thought about it," Lukas teased.

"Stepfather!" Draco wailed, which unfortunately caught his mother's attention.

"If the three of you have enough spare time to gossip like a bunch of old women, you can come over here and help us with the wedding plans," Narcissa ordered in a tart voice. "It is your wedding, after all, Ash."

"It's not exactly a wedding," Ash muttered under his breath, but meekly obeyed; she was Lukas's mate, and therefore the alpha female of the pack, after all.

Narcissa gave her son a speculative look and murmured to Lukas, "You know, dear, much as I hate to admit it, Draco is a young man now and no longer my little baby..." A few of the werewolves snickered, and Draco's face turned red again. A brief but fierce glare from Narcissa quickly silenced the snickers.

"And Serafina is becoming a young woman, and will soon leave Hogwarts," Narcissa continued. "Perhaps it is time for us to sit down with her mother and discuss our children's future."

Draco shot his stepfather a pleading look, and Lukas said soothingly, "Now, now, dear, there will be plenty of time for that in the future. Serafina is still in school, and she has an apprenticeship at St. Mungo's to complete after that. Besides, these are no longer the old days of arranged marriages, when the bride and bridegroom would not meet until their wedding day."

"Well, of course I wouldn't expect Draco to marry someone he's never met before!" Narcissa said indignantly. "But Serafina is a girl of good breeding, and Draco likes her, so I don't see what the problem is." 

"The problem is that Draco is young, and still an apprentice himself," Lukas explained patiently. "A man wants to have an established career and be able to support his wife before he takes a bride."

"I suppose you're right," Narcissa conceded reluctantly.

"Besides, I wouldn't have thought you'd be so eager to see your only son move out on his own," Lukas added.

"Oh, but I thought that Serafina could move into the Manor with Draco when they get married," Narcissa said brightly. "There's plenty of room here, after all."

"We'll deal with that when the time comes," Lukas said gently. "But for now, we should concentrate on getting Ash and Tsubasa married off first, don't you think?"

"Yes, you're right," Narcissa agreed, and Draco breathed a sigh of relief as his mother returned to supervising the party preparations.

*** 

The day of the celebration arrived, and Ash and Tsubasa met together to exchange gifts in private, as was the crane custom. Ash supposed that made sense, since it would be a little embarrassing to disrobe and re-dress in front of all the guests.

"Here is your token, Ash," Tsubasa said apologetically, handing him a small bundle of black silk. "I'm afraid that I could only manage to make a shirt instead of a full robe."

Ash unfolded the silk and held up his gift: a long-sleeved black shirt with buttons of polished jet and gold embroidery around the cuffs and hem. The stitching was a little crooked, and the buttons slightly off-center, but the flaws would only be noticeable upon close examination. The embroidery was a little odd, though. Ash thought at first that it was a stylized, abstract pattern, but then he realized that it was supposed to be a design of running wolves, although they looked more like a child's awkward stick-figure rendition of an overweight dog. 

Ash grinned and Tsubasa's face turned bright red. "I'm sorry; it's horrible, isn't it?" he mumbled. "You can't possibly wear that in public. Here, give it back and I'll--"

"It's rude to take back a gift," Ash said indignantly, clutching the shirt possessively to his chest. "It's mine, and I'm not giving it back."

"But--" Tsubasa protested.

"It's beautiful," Ash said firmly, giving him a kiss.

"You're either blind or overly-polite," Tsubasa sighed. "Honestly, my feelings won't be hurt if you tell me the truth."

"You should know by now that I'm rarely polite," Ash replied. "And I'm not blind, either. I think it's beautiful because you made it for me, and I'd rather wear this than the finest robe at Madam Malkin's, or even a robe made by the finest weaver in the crane clan. I'm wearing this no matter what you say."

"I still think you have terrible taste, but I'm glad that you like it," Tsubasa said, smiling a little ruefully, and allowed Ash to don the shirt.

"And here is my gift to you," Ash said, handing him the hair-tie he had made.

"This is wonderful, Ash!" Tsubasa exclaimed, his face lighting up with genuine pleasure. "How clever; you wove your own hair into it! I would have been happy with a ring, but it makes me even happier to have a token that contains a part of you."

"I can't really take the credit," Ash admitted, although he was pleased by his lover's response. "Your father came up with the idea, and he made the thread. I only braided it together."

"Still, it makes me happy," Tsubasa said, and he removed the cord he was wearing and replaced it with Ash's. The gold thread in the hair-tie was a nice match to his kimono, which was made of forest-green silk embroidered with gold feathers.

"You look beautiful," Ash said in a husky voice, leaning forward.

"So do you," Tsubasa whispered, and his lips met Ash's in a passionate kiss. They were on the verge of stripping off their wedding finery when someone pounded loudly on the door and Kai shouted, "Hey, what's taking so long? We're all waiting for you out here!"

They laughed and released each other, and Ash called back, "We'll be right out!"

"I guess we'll have to wait until after the wedding," Tsubasa said with a smile. Then he took Ash by the hand, and they went out to greet their guests together.

As they had agreed, there would be no formal ceremony, so there was no priest or Ministry official to administer the vows, and no bridesmaids or groomsmen, just their friends and family gathered to share in their happiness and wish them well.

The room was decorated in a tasteful blend of Asian and Western design, with elegant flower arrangements that Narcissa had put together, and beautiful silk tapestries that Yokuto had brought, painted with cranes in flight, or colorful carps swimming side by side. Both were symbols of love, Tsubasa explained: cranes because they mated for life, while the Japanese word for carp, "koi," also meant "love".

Laid out on the tables was a splendid feast, most of which had come from the restaurant that Takeshi's parents ran. Ash glanced over at Takeshi, who smiled at him encouragingly, and suddenly, Ash knew exactly what he wanted to say to Tsubasa. He mentally threw out the carefully planned speech he had written; it had been too stiff and formal, anyway. His new one would probably ruffle a few feathers and stir up some gossip, but after all, one couldn't expect poetry and pretty speeches from a werewolf.

Ash grinned wickedly, and Tsubasa gave him a questioning look. "Something I should know about?" he murmured.

"You'll find out soon enough," Ash whispered, still grinning, and Tsubasa just shook his head slightly and smiled.

"If the two of you are ready, you may begin at any time," Yokuto gently prompted, while the younger werewolves were already fidgeting and squirming with impatience.

Ash gestured for Tsubasa to go first, and he took Ash's hands in his, paused to take a deep breath, then said, "I love my homeland, but I always felt like a part of me was somehow missing in Japan. Perhaps it was because you were waiting for me here in England. You complete me, Ash, and home for me now is wherever you are. I swear that I will stay by your side for as long as we both shall live." And he raised Ash's hands to his mouth and pressed his lips against them with such tenderness and reverence that it took Ash's breath away.

When he remembered to start breathing again, he realized that everyone was staring expectantly at him, waiting for him to state his own vows. Still holding Tsubasa's hands, Ash asked, "Do you remember, when I first propositioned you, you said that you wouldn't go out with me unless I could explain why I liked you? Actually, what you really wanted to know was whether I wanted you for yourself, or if I was just using you as a substitute for Takeshi."

"What?!" a stunned Takeshi exclaimed. "Me? But...we're just friends! I never...we never...well, there was that one time, but..."

"Idiot," Aric said affectionately, throwing an arm around his lover's shoulders. "Everyone but you knew that Ash had a thing for you. At least, it was obvious to me."

From the way that the other werewolves were giggling and gossiping, it seemed that most of them had at least suspected it. Lukas smiled at Ash wryly. "Well, this is certainly a nontraditional ceremony," he muttered under his breath.

Ash stole a quick glance at the other guests: Narcissa looked a little put out that the ceremony was departing from its scheduled planning, and Draco and the elder Kimuras looked bemused, while Lupin looked thoughtful and Snape smiled sardonically. Laura and Harry both looked startled and confused, while Molly Weasley looked as though she wanted to cover their ears to keep them from hearing anything scandalous. Tonks giggled; Kingsley shook his head; and Sirius and Arthur just grinned. 

A few of Tsubasa's tengu friends, including Karasu, had come from Japan to attend the celebration, and were laughing and gossiping with each other in Japanese, looking amused and intrigued by all the fuss. Ash hesitated before finally turning his gaze on his new in-laws, belatedly worried that he might have offended them, but Reiko looked amused and Yokuto was smiling serenely, apparently secure in the faith that cranes always chose the right mate.

"Ash, I'm sorry," Takeshi said, looking so distressed that Ash began to feel a bit guilty about his impromptu speech. "I never meant to lead you on or hurt you..."

"Don't worry," Ash said reassuringly. "I'm about to explain exactly why I love Tsubasa and not you."

Tsubasa laughed. "Yes, I remember those questions, but I think we're beyond that point by now, Ash. I know that you love me, so you don't need to answer them anymore."

"But I want to," Ash insisted.

"Very well," Tsubasa said, his expression turning more serious now, although he was still smiling slightly. He waited patiently while Ash took a deep breath to compose himself, and all the gossip and laughter faded away as the guests fell silent.

"I didn't know how to answer you the first time," Ash said. "But now I do. You and Takeshi look a little alike because you're related and you both have crane blood, but personality-wise, you're nothing alike. Takeshi is a healer, and he'd never hurt anyone willingly. In self-defense, maybe, but with great reluctance and only as a last resort. You are a warrior, and I could sense it from the moment I laid eyes on you, even though you weren't wearing your swords. I could see it in the way you moved, with the grace and menace of a predator, and the wolf in me found it intoxicating. I was drawn to you, one predator to another.

"Takeshi is kind, sometimes to a fault. When I'm being stubborn or feeling sorry for myself or just generally behaving like an idiot, he's usually too nice to call me on it. You, on the other hand, will give me a good kick in the arse when I need it."

Tsubasa grinned at him, and Ash paused to grin back, then continued, "You wouldn't let me run away from my past." He glanced at Laura, who smiled at him. "But you were also there to support me when I needed it. When I nearly lost myself to the wolf, you called me back to humanity. You push me; you challenge me, and...you complete me. I love you, Tsubasa, and there is no one else in the world that I want other than you."

Tsubasa kissed him, and the room erupted into cheers and applause. "You were so worried about writing your wedding vows, and here you are, giving a speech like a seasoned Ministry official," Lukas laughed. "Better watch out that he doesn't take your job, Arthur!"

Ash shuddered. "Merlin forbid! I wouldn't have his job for all the gold in Gringotts!"

"Lucky for me, then, that my job is safe," Arthur laughed.

"For the moment," Snape said ominously. 

"Oh, Severus, must you always be so grim?" Lupin scolded. "This is supposed to be a happy occasion. Can't you leave the cynicism at home for once?"

"I have been accused of many things, but being a ray of sunshine was never one of them," Snape replied dryly.

As the two continued to bicker good-naturedly, Ash leaned over and whispered to Tsubasa, "Do you think we'll ever be like them one day? Fighting like an old married couple?"

"Perhaps not exactly like them," Tsubasa replied with a smile. "Though I am sure we will have disagreements from time to time, as all married couples do. But I don't mind fighting with you if it means we can have passionate make-up sex afterwards."

Unfortunately, both Laura and Molly happened to be standing within earshot, and the former turned bright red while the latter indignantly exclaimed, "Professor Tsubasa! Please remember to conduct yourself in a manner befitting a teacher at Hogwarts, especially when one of your students is present!"

Tsubasa's eyes glinted with laughter, but he bowed and meekly said, "My apologies, Mrs. Weasley; you are perfectly correct. And my apologies to you too, little sister."

"It's okay," Laura said, still blushing furiously. "But...do you really mean that? That I'm your sister now?"

"Of course," Tsubasa replied, smiling at her kindly. "I have officially taken Ash as my mate, so by the laws of my people, that makes you and I kin as well. If we were in Japan, you would call me 'oniisan'--'big brother'." He winked at her. "But you still have to call me 'Professor' in class."

"I will, oh...oniisan," Laura said, stumbling a little over the unfamiliar word. Then she smiled up at them with incredulous joy, looking so happy to be part of their family; Ash had felt the same way when Lukas had first welcomed him into the pack.

He wrapped one arm around her waist and bent down to plant a tender kiss on her forehead, saying, "We will always be your family, little sister." He reached out with his other arm to pull Tsubasa into the embrace, and his heart felt so full of happiness that he thought it might burst.

Tsubasa kissed him, reaching up to cradle Ash's face with one hand, his fingers brushing against the scar on Ash's cheek, and suddenly he thought of something he had forgotten to say in his impulsive speech. The visible scars on his body no longer seemed to matter so much, because Tsubasa--and perhaps Laura, too--had finally healed the scars in his heart.

*** 

A couple of hours later, the party was still going strong, with copious amounts of alcohol flowing, particularly between the werewolf and tengu guests, who seemed to be determined to drink each other under the table. The happy couple looked as though they were trying to find a chance to discreetly slip away and consummate the marriage, but their friends persisted in congratulating them one more time and pressing one last drink on them.

Lupin and Snape, however, had no such problem, not being the guests of honor, and quietly slipped out of the mansion to stroll through the grounds.

"It was a lovely wedding, wasn't it?" Lupin sighed happily.

"Well, the actual ceremony was rather short, and thank Merlin, there was no dancing, so as weddings go, I suppose this one wasn't too bad," Snape conceded. Lupin just laughed in response and slipped his arm through Snape's, and they continued walking in companionable silence for a few minutes.

"It's a lovely night, isn't it?" Lupin asked, pausing to glance up at the moon, which cast its pale light over the snow-covered ground, and caused the gray streaks in Lupin's hair to shine silver.

Snape stared at his lover with admiration, but complained in a gruff voice, "It's a bloody cold night, Lupin."

"Must you always be such a romantic, Severus?" Lupin teased.

"Perhaps I could be persuaded to feel romantic in a more comfortable setting," Snape said silkily. "Say, in a bed under several thick blankets with a fire blazing on the hearth."

"That sounds like a reasonable proposition," Lupin said, wrapping his arms around Snape. "I'll even throw in some hot chocolate."

"Then we have a bargain, Lupin," Snape said, and sealed that bargain with a kiss. Lupin's lips felt cool beneath his, contrasting with the heat inside his mouth as Lupin's lips parted to admit Snape's tongue. They Disapparated a few seconds later, arms still wrapped around each other.

*** 

Life returned to a quiet, normal pace after that, although Lupin half-jokingly said that he no longer recalled what "normal" was like. Ash permanently moved into Hogwarts with Tsubasa, commuting to his job at the Ministry each weekday, and on weekends, they would usually take Laura over to Diggory Manor to visit the werewolf pack.

Theodore came home to spend a couple of weeks with his family over the holidays, which delighted Lupin, who was thrilled to have both of his "cubs" home for Christmas. Snape was less effusive, but his usual scowl was noticeably absent from his face, and he seemed to radiate a sense of quiet contentment.

There was a bit of excitement--although of the pleasant variety--when Branwen gave birth to a baby boy in January. Snape and Lupin hurried over to St. Mungo's as soon as they got the news.

"He's beautiful," Lupin crooned, accepting an offer to hold the baby--one which Snape had hastily declined. "Isn't he, Severus?"

Snape privately thought that all babies pretty much looked like each other. The only real difference he could see between this child and the newborn Cedric Drake was that Branwen's baby had black hair and green eyes to Cedric's blond and yellow-green. But since the proud mother was a master of the Dark Arts and part demon to boot, Snape kept his opinions to himself and politely replied, "Yes, quite."

Bane cawed and flew over from his perch on the headboard of the bed to land on Lupin's shoulder and peer down at the baby. The raven was notoriously possessive of his mistress, and Snape had thought he might be jealous of the child, but perhaps he thought of it as an extension of Branwen, because he was regarding the baby with the same look of combined affection and protectiveness that he usually reserved solely for his mistress.

"The nurse tried to tell us that animals aren't allowed in the hospital," Harry said with a grin. "But Bane just gave her this evil look and she ran right out of the room."

"Actually, I'm not sure whether it was Bane or Branwen who scared her away," Sirius laughed. "Of course Branwen insisted on having that oversized feather duster here while she gave birth." Bane cawed and glared at him for a moment before turning his attention back to the baby.

"Congratulations, Sirius," Lupin told his friend.

"Thanks," Sirius said, beaming as proudly as if he'd been the one to give birth. "You'll be his godfather, won't you, Moony?" 

"Of course, Padfoot, I'd be honored to be godfather to...er...what have you two decided to name him, anyway?"

Sirius laughed. "We kept debating about it right up until Branwen was ready to give birth. But I guess it's time to pick one now! So what do you think, Bran? I was sort of leaning towards Meredith, after your father."

"Actually," Branwen said softly, "I thought perhaps we could call him Regulus."

"Oh!" Sirius exclaimed, his eyes going wide with shock.

"If that's all right with you, dear," Branwen added. "If it brings back too many painful memories we can call him something else, but I thought it would be a way to honor your brother."

"Regulus," Sirius murmured, taking the baby from Lupin, his eyes filling with tears. He had always regretted that Reg had died while they were still at odds. He had felt responsible, as if he should have done more to save his brother. If Branwen had brought up the idea earlier, he probably would have rejected it out of hand, which was no doubt why she had waited until the last possible moment. But now, as he thought it over, he began to feel that she was right, that maybe this was a way to honor Regulus and make peace with him.

"Regulus Blackmore," he said in a firmer voice, blinking away his tears. "It's a fine name." The baby--Regulus--smiled, and Sirius grinned at his son and said, "See? He approves!"

"So he'll be a Blackmore then, and not a Black?" Harry asked.

"Well, Branwen would like her family name to live on and I don't really care if mine dies out," Sirius replied. "Besides, his first name is coming from the Black side of the family tree, so it only seems fair for his last name to honor the Blackmores." He added jokingly, "I did think about naming him James, but since Moony is going to be the godfather, I didn't think that Snape would appreciate it."

"You thought right, Black," Snape said sourly and everyone laughed--even, after a moment, Snape.

"Besides," Sirius chuckled, "someday you might want to name your own son after your dad, Harry."

"Ah, well, I'm sure that won't be for a very long time," Harry said, flushing slightly. "Besides, you never know, I might have all girls!"

"Then you can call one of them Jamie," Sirius joked, then bent down to kiss his wife. "Thank you, Branwen," he whispered. "You always know what I need, even when I don't."

"Of course, dear," Branwen replied, with such matter-of-factness that Sirius just had to laugh. "I've known you since you were eleven years old, after all."

"And who'd have guessed that I'd grow up to marry my teacher?" Sirius laughed.

"Oh, I'd say that Hogwarts teachers are very much in demand as potential mates," Lupin said with a mischievous grin as he wrapped an arm around Snape and kissed him.

"Moony, please, not in front of the baby!" Sirius protested, and everyone burst into laughter again.

*** 

The rest of the school year passed quietly. Branwen took the rest of the term off to look after Regulus, although she planned to return to Hogwarts in the fall, and Prospero Zabini temporarily took over her classes. He was often seen scribbling in a notebook between classes, and when a few curious students asked what he was writing, he just smiled and replied that he was keeping a diary. Coincidentally, a few months later, Ariel Zoltaire published a new book about a young wizard's adventures at boarding school.

Erika and Henry got married in the spring, and went to Egypt on their honeymoon. Erika insisted on inviting Aric to the wedding, managing to win out over her grandfather's objections to everyone's surprise except maybe Henry's. Aric and Roderick managed to behave civilly, for Erika's sake, but there was no attempt at reconciliation, and Aric left immediately after the reception was over. 

Summer arrived, and the students grew a little restless as the end of school drew near. "They've been too well-behaved up until now, and they're overdue for some mischief," Snape said suspiciously to Lupin one night as they were grading papers in their quarters. "I've noticed the seventh-years whispering and gossiping, and I suspect some sort of prank is underfoot."

"Well, if you catch them, you can give them detention, which should please you," Lupin replied with a smile. "And if they're clever enough not to get caught by the vigilant Professor Snape, then I'd say they deserve to get away with it."

"You're always too soft on the students, Lupin," Snape scolded.

"Actually, I can sympathize with them," Lupin sighed. "I feel a bit restless myself." He pushed aside his papers and said, "It's a lovely summer evening, Severus. Why don't we go up to the Astronomy Tower, gaze at the stars, and have a late-night picnic?"

"What, now?" Snape asked, startled. "Are you sure Sinistra doesn't have a class up there tonight?"

"No, the Tower should be free tonight," Lupin replied. "I checked."

"Ah," Snape said slyly. "This isn't a spur of the moment thing, then; you already had it planned."

"I confess," Lupin laughed, throwing up his hands. "I could never fool the likes of clever Professor Snape! I have a nice bottle of elf-made wine, and I've asked the house-elves to prepare a basket of all your favorite sweets, and...Accio!" He flicked his wand and a blanket flew across the room and landed in his lap, neatly folded. "I have a nice picnic blanket here, which could temporarily be conjured into a mattress in case we had the urge to, say...take a nap." He winked and leered playfully at Snape.

"Well, in that case I see no reason to object," Snape agreed smoothly. "My only real objection to our last picnic on the Tower was that the stone floor was rather...uncomfortable."

"I promise," Lupin said in a low, sensual growl, "that I will see to your every comfort, Severus."

Snape jumped to his feet, the homework papers forgotten. "Then what are we waiting for?"

*** 

However, Lupin was not the only one who was feeling restless that night. A group of older students had gathered in a corner of the Slytherin common room and were talking in hushed voices.

"A bunch of us are going swimming in the lake tonight," Brandon Harper told Dylan and Damien. "Are you guys up for it?"

"Who else is going?" Damien wanted to know.

"I am," Yvonne Deveraux said coyly, fluttering her lashes at Harper, who grinned. A few other girls giggled and blushed, indicating that they were going along, too.

Damien looked the girls up and down in a deliberately suggestive manner, and they giggled a little louder. "Sure, why not?" he said carelessly.

"Well, for one thing, you have a girlfriend," Dylan pointed out. "Parvati will kill you if she hears that you've been going skinny dipping with a bunch of girls."

"We're just going for a little swim," Damien replied innocently. "It's not like I'm going out on a date or something."

"Right," Dylan said skeptically.

"And it won't be just girls," Damien added. "Harper will be there."

"And Doherty and Baddock, too," Harper added.

"And you don't have to strip down completely if you don't want to," Yvonne said demurely. "Although no one would object if you want to go...au naturel." The girls giggled again and eyed Dylan just as lasciviously as Damien had eyed them.

"Melissa's going, too," Brad Doherty said, referring to his Gryffindor girlfriend. "And one of her friends is bringing a guy from Hufflepuff."

"It'll be so much more fun if you come, too, Dylan," Yvonne's friend Alicia coaxed. 

"I don't know," Dylan said doubtfully. "There's the giant squid..."

"It'll be fine if we stay in the shallows," Baddock said confidently. "C'mon, Dylan, help us out!" He let his gaze slide over towards the girls, indicating that his presence would help ensure their company tonight.

"I have a girlfriend, too, you know. Maybe Damien doesn't care, but--"

"It's just a little swim," Yvonne cooed. "And we won't tell Hermione about it if you don't."

"You do realize that we'll all get detention if we're caught?" Dylan sighed.

"So what?" Harper scoffed. "We've only got a week of school left, anyway. Where's your sense of adventure, Rosier? Your father would have been up for this without a second thought!"

Harper's last remark clearly struck home, and Damien immediately jumped in, sensing that his friend was wavering. "I know you've had to be careful all these years," he said. "But no one believes that you're a Death Eater anymore, and Snape's not going to expel you because you went out for a night swim. Come on, Dylan--you've got to have at least one adventure before we leave school!"

"I think the final battle and nearly getting killed on the Quidditch Pitch were adventure enough, don't you?" Dylan laughed, but he gave in. "All right; I can't shame my father's name. Let's go swimming and to hell with detention or the giant squid!"

*** 

Meanwhile, they were not the only ones who had felt an urge for a night swim. Tsubasa was leading a reluctant werewolf to the shore of the lake.

"This is a really bad idea," Ash whined. "What if we get caught?"

"All the teachers and students are safely in the castle," Tsubasa said soothingly. "Most of them are probably in bed right now. Besides, while the students aren't allowed out of the castle at night, there's no rule that says the teachers can't go swimming in the middle of the night if they want."

"Oh, that will be so comforting if we get caught out here stark naked," Ash said sarcastically. "Besides, what about the giant squid and the mermen?"

"They stay out in the deep part of the lake, I'm told," Tsubasa replied calmly. "If we stay near the shore, we should be all right."

"You're 'told'?" Ash demanded. "I'm supposed to trust my life to hearsay?"

Tsubasa grinned. "Surely a brave wolf like you isn't afraid of a little giant squid."

"'Little giant' is a contradiction in terms," Ash pointed out. 

"Come on, it'll be fun," Tsubasa coaxed, tugging at his hand, but Ash stubbornly dug in his heels and refused to move. "What's wrong, Ash?" he asked gently.

Ash hung his head and mumbled, "I can't swim."

"Really?" Tsubasa asked. "I didn't realize. You grew up running wild in the woods, so I just assumed..."

"There was a creek that ran through the woods, but no one ever taught me to swim," Ash said. "My mother and my aunt had no use for me, and my stepfather was too busy at the farm."

"Well, it's nothing to be ashamed of," Tsubasa said kindly. "Come on, I'll teach you." He grinned. "The dog paddle is easy enough."

"Ha ha, very funny," Ash said sourly, still gazing at the lake with trepidation. "I don't know..."

"It will be fun," Tsubasa repeated, then gave him a sultry smile. He untied the sash of his kimono and let the garment slide off his shoulders and down to the ground.

"Oh," Ash sighed, gazing at his mate appreciatively. They had been living together for several months now, but he never failed to be captivated by Tsubasa's beauty, and he looked almost ethereally beautiful tonight, like something out of a fairy tale, with the moonlight casting a glow over his fair skin.

Tsubasa kicked off his sandals and slowly pulled his underpants down his long legs and gracefully stepped out of them. Then he turned and walked into the water, swaying his hips invitingly. "Come on, Ash," he called, glancing back over his shoulder.

"Merlin's balls!" Ash swore under his breath. "I can't believe I'm doing this." But he stripped off his clothes and reluctantly joined his mate.

Tsubasa slowly coaxed him into the lake, one step at a time, the water washing over his feet and ankles, then his calves, and then his knees, until finally they were waist-deep in the lake.

"It's cold," Ash complained.

"It's pleasantly cool," Tsubasa said cheerfully. "You'll get used to it in a few minutes. Or should I help warm you up?"

"I think you should," Ash replied, wrapping his arms around his mate. Tsubasa kissed him, caressing his chest with one hand, while his other hand slid down Ash's stomach and below the water...

*** 

Up on the Astronomy Tower, Snape and Lupin had polished off two slices of chocolate cake, leaving behind only crumbs, and were now working on a bowl of strawberries and cream. Lupin was feeding Snape a strawberry, shivering with pleasure as Snape licked traces of cream and fruit juice from his fingers, when suddenly he cocked his head to one side and frowned.

"Did you hear that?" he asked.

"Hear what?" Snape asked.

"I'm not sure," Lupin replied, then rose to his feet to gaze over the Tower wall. "There's someone over by the lake," he said, then used one of the telescopes to get a better view. "Oh my!" he exclaimed with a startled laugh.

"What is it?" Snape asked, and came over to take a look. "Ah, I see. I might have expected it of the werewolf, but I didn't know that Professor Tsubasa was such an exhibitionist."

"Not all werewolves are exhibitionists, Sev," Lupin said with a grin, then gazed through the telescope again. "Ash actually seems rather shy about it, although Tsubasa seems to be doing a pretty good job of changing his mind."

Snape frowned disapprovingly; Lupin seemed to be taking a little too much interest in the proceedings at the lake. "I had no idea you were such a voyeur, Lupin," he said, his voice sharpening slightly with jealousy. Both Ash and Tsubasa were attractive men--much more attractive than a homely Potions Master, and he didn't like the idea of Lupin finding pleasure in gazing at their naked bodies.

"I'm not," Lupin protested, smiling at Snape reassuringly. "I was only wishing that we had thought of it first." His voice turned husky with desire. "I would love to see you naked in the moonlight, the water washing over your body, leaving it wet and glistening..."

"Lupin," Snape said hoarsely, reaching for his lover, but then Lupin cocked his head again and said, "Wait a minute. Did you hear that?"

*** 

The group of students were making their way towards the lake when they heard voices, and they quickly ducked behind some bushes. "Damn it, someone else got here first!" Harper swore.

"Who is it?" Dylan asked. He hadn't been enthusiastic about the idea at first, but now he was rather disappointed that he wouldn't get to have one last adventure after all. A bit of skinny dipping was hardly on the grand scale of the pranks that Evan Rosier and Lyall Wilkes had pulled at Hogwarts, but Dylan felt as if he ought to get into at least a little mischief before he left school, so as not to dishonor the Rosier name.

"Oh my God!" Yvonne squealed. "It's Professor Tsubasa and Mr. Randolf! And they're taking off their clothes! Or at least the Professor is!"

The other girls began squealing, too, and Damien hissed, "Keep it down! Do you want them to hear you?" Fortunately, the werewolf appeared to be distracted by the sight of his lover disrobing, and his keen ears didn't seem to pick up the girls' voices.

The girls covered their eyes with their hands, pretending to be too embarrassed to watch, but Dylan noticed that they spread their fingers apart wide enough to peek through them. "Merlin, he's so handsome," Alicia sighed.

"He's almost as pretty as a girl with his clothes on, but he's definitely male," Brad observed.

"We really shouldn't be watching this," Melissa protested halfheartedly, but she didn't seem to be in any hurry to look away.

"Ooh, now Mr. Randolf is taking off his clothes, too," Yvonne said eagerly.

"Wow, he's got a lot of scars," Alicia said. "But they're not ugly. In a way, it makes him seem even more..."

"Dangerous," Yvonne said in a breathy voice. "Exciting."

"This is no fun," a disgruntled Harper complained. "At least, not for us guys. Why couldn't it be a female teacher going out for a swim?"

"Oh, and do you really want to see McGonagall naked?" Damien retorted. "I suppose Sinistra's not bad looking, but she's old enough to be our mum. You know, Dumbledore needs to hire some pretty young female teachers for a change. It's too bad that Professor Chizuru went back to Japan."

"Yeah, well, she's married to Master Karasu now," Brad pointed out. "And if he ever caught you spying on her like this, he'd probably use his sword to cut off your--"

*** 

"Wait a minute," Ash gasped. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Tsubasa asked, starting to turn his head, but Ash quickly grabbed his face with one hand to stop him.

Ash placed his mouth against Tsubasa's ear and whispered, "Don't turn around, but I think someone--several someones--are watching us."

Tsubasa laughed, as if he and Ash were just indulging in a bit of lover's banter. "Where is it coming from?" he whispered back.

"Behind us and a little to the left," Ash replied, brushing his lips against Tsubasa's neck and casually moving so that he could get a better view of the shore. "I just saw that bush twitch. And I distinctly heard a girl giggle."

"Students, then," Tsubasa said, more amused than annoyed. He had spent about ten years living with the tengu, who had little modesty or shame regarding their bodies. And as a prank, a tengu girl had once stolen his clothes while he was bathing in the river, so it was a somewhat familiar experience for him. Still, a prank required payback, and Tsubasa grinned as he thought of a suitable revenge--the same revenge he had exacted on his tengu prankster. "Can you scare our little voyeurs out of the bushes?" he asked.

Ash marched up onto the shore and roared in his scariest wolf-growl, "Who's there?!" Several students squealed in fright and ran out of the bushes. Tsubasa gestured with his hand, calling upon his intrinsic weaving magic. He was a terrible weaver, but creating something was always more difficult than destroying it. It was child's play to use his magic to pull the thread out of the seams of the students' clothing, causing them to fall to pieces on the ground. 

There were shouts and squeals of dismay as the students snatched up the pieces of their clothing and hightailed it back to the castle as fast as they could run. Ash threw back his head and laughed. "So are you going to give them detention or take off points?"

"I think they've learned their lessons," Tsubasa replied, grinning smugly. "Of course, they might still run into trouble if Filch catches them sneaking back into the castle like that. I think I saw Mr. Rosier among them; he might be smart enough to find a bush or tree to hide behind and fix his clothing before he goes back inside. I do hope the students are familiar with mending spells."

"I think they were mostly Slytherins," Ash said, grinning back at him. "They'd better hope that Snape doesn't catch them sneaking back into the dungeon."

"That would be even worse than running into Filch," Tsubasa agreed. "Well, I don't think we'll be disturbed any further tonight. Shall we resume our swimming lesson?"

"Let's," Ash said, and they headed back into the water, laughing.

*** 

Lupin smiled, turning away from the telescope and pointing it skyward once again. "Remind me never to get on Tsubasa's bad side."

"I don't see why you're so impressed," Severus said disdainfully. "I could do that just as easily, although I admit I would need a wand."

"Yes, I remember," Lupin laughed, recalling the spell that his lover had invented that caused one's clothes to fall apart at the seams--very convenient when one was in a hurry to make love, with no need to fumble with buttons and zippers. "I also recall that you weren't quite as good at putting my clothes back together."

"I bought you a new robe," Severus said huffily.

"Yes, you did," Lupin agreed, kissing his lover to soothe his ruffled feathers. "Shall we get back to our picnic and give Tsubasa and Ash some privacy?"

Mollified, Severus allowed Lupin to pull him back down to the blanket. "You were the one who wanted to spy on them," he pointed out. Then one corner of his mouth twitched up in a reluctant smile. "Although I have to admit, that was pretty funny."

"I was only making sure that there were no students in danger," Lupin said virtuously. "And apparently the only danger they're in is of being extremely embarrassed if they get caught sneaking back into the castle naked. Are you going to give them detention?"

"Maybe," Severus replied, grinning wickedly and sending a shiver of anticipation down Lupin's spine. "If Filch catches them, I'll let him deal with them. If not, I'll let them feel relieved for a little while, then pounce and give them detention and let them wonder how I found out about their night expedition."

"Professor Snape knows all," Lupin laughed. Actually, he had found Ash's and Tsubasa's skinny dip to be a little arousing, but he could never tell Severus that without sending him into a rage of jealousy. Although it wasn't so much that he was lusting after either man so much as it made him want to do the same things with Severus. 

And well, maybe the idea of spying on someone unseen was just a tiny bit exciting, Lupin admitted to himself. He pushed aside the plates of food and Transfigured the blanket into a soft, plush mattress. Then he began to undress slowly and provocatively.

"Well, perhaps voyeurism isn't so bad if it puts you in this kind of mood," Severus conceded, staring at Lupin with hungry and appreciative eyes, which aroused Lupin further.

"I'm always in the mood, Severus," Lupin purred.

"True," his lover agreed. 

"Come here and take off your clothes, Professor Snape," Lupin ordered.

"Bossy wolf," Severus complained, but complied promptly. The bowl of strawberries and cream was still half full, and he reached over to scoop up a generous dollop of cream with his hand. Then he slowly smeared it across Lupin's body, circling his nipples and sketching swirls across his belly, pausing to grin when he reached Lupin's crotch. "You're already standing at attention and I haven't even touched you there yet, wolf. Perhaps you really are a voyeur."

Lupin gasped as he felt his lover's hand close around him, moving up and down with maddening slowness. "It's only...that...I want you...so much...Sev," he panted.

"Then let me oblige," Severus said, and proceeded to very carefully and thoroughly lick off all the cream he had just spread on Lupin's body. By the time he was done, Lupin was moaning uncontrollably.

"Severus, take me now," he growled impatiently.

"Bossy wolf," Severus grumbled again, but his voice was also hoarse with lust. "Let's see, we'll need..." he muttered, rummaging through the picnic basket until he found the small vial of lavender oil that Lupin had packed. "You always come prepared, Lupin," he said with a grin. "I like that about you."

"No one is coming just yet," Lupin said pointedly. "Nor is anyone likely to, unless you get over here and make love to me. Now."

"If you keep making puns like that, I just might leave you there," Severus said, but they both knew that it was an empty threat. He teased Lupin a little longer, slowly pouring the oil over his fingers and slicking it over himself.

"You seem to be at attention there yourself, Professor Snape, and I haven't touched you yet, either," Lupin growled. "Let me remedy the situation." He reached out and firmly grasped hold of "the situation," so to speak, eliciting a wild groan from his lover, and things began to proceed at a much more satisfying pace.

Severus pushed Lupin onto his back, kissing him passionately as he slipped two fingers inside him. Lupin growled and writhed appreciatively, but soon that was not enough. "Now!" he growled insistently, pulling his lover down on top of him, then groaned as he felt Severus enter him, reveling in the sensation of being stretched and filled.

He wrapped his legs around his lover's waist, trying to pull him in deeper, clawing at his back to urge him on. Their bodies rocked together with increasing franticness, until off in the distance, Lupin heard a wolf howl, enflaming him even further. He titled back his head and whispered, "Claim me." A familiar wave of pleasure-pain washed over him as Severus sank his teeth into his throat, and Lupin howled his joy to the night sky.

*** 

Tsubasa and Ash lay entwined together on the shore of the lake, panting softly, letting their bodies cool down after a vigorous bout of lovemaking. They both jumped with a start when they heard a wolf howling out in the distance.

"Merlin, is someone else spying on us?!" Tsubasa exclaimed.

"No one's in the bushes," Ash said, sitting up and looking around. "It sounds like it's coming from the direction of the castle, but it's too loud to have come from indoors. Maybe from the courtyard or the Astronomy Tower?" He frowned suspiciously. "You know, Lukas always goes home at night, so there's only one other werewolf in the castle right now."

"Shouldn't Professor Lupin be in the dungeon with Professor Snape?" Tsubasa chuckled.

"Maybe like us, they wanted to get some fresh air," Ash said with a grin.

"Well, this has been fun, but I think I've had enough company for one night," Tsubasa said, reaching for his clothes. "Shall we go back now?"

"Yes," Ash agreed. As they got dressed, he added, "Er...it just occurred to me, but if we could hear them, does that mean that they could hear us?"

"Hear you," Tsubasa corrected. "I wasn't the one who was howling. Probably, but I don't think they'll say anything about it, because then they would have to explain what they were doing in the courtyard or up on the Astronomy Tower."

"Probably the Astronomy Tower," Ash said. "I don't think they'd be doing that in the courtyard. Unless they're complete exhibitionists."

"Well, you never know," Tsubasa said. "Remus strikes me as the sort who might enjoy that sort of thing." They both laughed, and walked hand-in-hand together back to the castle.


End file.
